Re: OT: a proposal for increasing teachers' salaries

Josh Hill wrote:
On Wed, 09 May 2007 11:31:45 GMT, Kurt Ullman <kurtullman@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

In article <ei424314pvuap1sa6pjjo122l0vfcspebs@xxxxxxx>,
Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


The argument, however, is that they didn't give explicit instructions
because they thought the principle so obvious that they didn't have
to. It simply never occurred to them that the Senate would operate by
other than majority rule, except where explicitly stated in the
Constitution.
That is somewhat fallacious, at best. Why would anyone assume that?

Because they /didn't/ leave instructions, and yet a simple majority
was required to pass at least one vote -- the first vote on rules.
Ergo, the assumption was implicit in at least one case. And if they
made that implicit assumption in one case, why wouldn't they have made
it in others?

The language of the Constitution is vague by modern legal standards.
They just weren't as compulsive as we are about dotting the "i's" and
crossing the "t's." Consider the fact that the Constitution doesn't
specify the size of the Supreme Court, which opened the way for
Roosevelt's court packing attempt. Or that it isn't clear on the
Supreme Court's right to rule on the constitutionality of a law.

As a requirement, yes. Where they wanted no discretion they set it
stone. But that is a reach to suggest that they gave Congress free will
(in the part about making their own rules) and then thought that they
wouldn't then use it.).

There's always the law of unintended consequences, e.g., it may never
have occurred to anyone that cloture would be used to create a de
facto requirement for a supermajority.


Of course the original requirement was that senators would be chosen by
their state legislature. Now they are chosen by a popular vote. I
believe this has lead to many of the problems. I believe it was
Washington who said that the senate was to cool the house as the saucer
that cooled hot tea. Now that senators have to answer to the masses
themselves and have to get a majority of all the voters in their state
to elect them, are even more political then members of the House.

.

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