House Republicans reciting the Constitution like the Devil quoting scripture

They are daily complicit in industrial scale profanations of the document they purport to venerate

Yesterday, House Republicans stood one by one on the House floor for a 43-minute recitation of the United States Constitution which they are sworn to uphold and defend as a condition to holding office under Article VI.

With all due respect, the spectacle was like the devil quoting scripture. These same Republicans salute limitless, extraconstitutional, presidential power and eagerly unconstitutionally surrender their legislative prerogatives to the executive branch like a cowardly dog returning to the kennel when danger appears.

I am reminded of attorney Joseph Welch’s legendary riposte to Senator Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.) during the Army-McCarthy hearings: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

On July 23, 2019, President Donald Trump extra-constitutionally proclaimed in the manner of Napoleon’s self-coronation, without dissent from a single Republican, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.”

Mr. Trump acted accordingly. He continued to fight extraconstitutional, undeclared wars in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and against Al Qaeda and ISIS everywhere.

The Constitution is crystal clear in Article I, section 8, clause 11: only Congress can authorize the offensive use of the armed forces not in response to a sudden attack on the United States itself. President George Washington, who presided over the constitutional convention, instructed, “The Constitution vests the power of declaring War with Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure.” Every participant in drafting the Constitution agreed.

President Trump, like his predecessors, asserted and exercised the power to play prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to exterminate any person on the planet he fingered as a potential national security threat based on secret, speculative hunches—the very definition of tyranny. No dissent from any House Republican.

House Republicans partner with their Democratic colleagues to unilaterally surrender vast sweeps of legislative power to the executive through standardless delegations of legislative prerogatives. Executive agencies issue legislative rules at 30 times the rate of Congress, notwithstanding Article 1, section 1: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”

The National Emergencies Act of 1976 empowers the President to declare national emergencies triggering special presidential powers under 136 laws without even attempting a definition of the key phrase. It could include, climate change, COVID, a spree in gun killings, a spike in inflation or unemployment, a spiraling national debt, fentanyl, illegal immigration, air pollution, plunging educational standards, or whatever else the President wants it to mean to advance a partisan political agenda.

The Federal Reserve is directed by Congress to pursue price stability and maximum employment simultaneously, like trying to square the circle. Congress had given away its responsibility for monetary policy enshrined in Article I, section 8, lock stock and barrel to the Fed.

House Republicans have with their Democratic colleagues abandoned the crown jewel of oversight to police lawlessness and mismanagement in the executive branch: inherent congressional contempt including imprisonment for defying congressional subpoenas affirmed unanimously by the United States Supreme Court in McGrain v. Daugherty.

House Republicans gave away the power of the purse in defending President Trump’s diversion of funds appropriated for military construction to build a wall along the southwest border.

House Republicans support a federal pro-life statute without a crumb of constitutional authority to legislative rules governing abortions.

It is a great misfortune that the Supreme Court held in Powell v. McCormack that the Constitution authorizes only three conditions for House membership: age, residency, and citizenship. There should be an additional condition: demonstrated constitutional literacy. I have prepared a 10-part, multiple-choice test for any Member with the courage to take it. No test taker has yet come forward.