Gephardt embraces unusual constitutional law principle

Seven Democratic presidential hopefuls appeared in Chicago yesterday at a forum sponsored by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Nearly all the candidates expressed support for affirmative action and expressed concern about a pending case on the issue before the Supreme Court.

Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), however, was so concerned about what the high court might do, he suggested he’d work around these rulings if elected president.

“When I’m president, we’ll have executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day,” Gephardt said.

Now I didn’t hear the speech or have a chance to see the entire context for this remark, I just saw it published in several newspapers. But assuming the quote is accurate, this is an unusually dumb thing for a presidential candidate and experienced lawmaker to say.

Let’s assume the context was about affirmative action. Gephardt, if elected, could implement some affirmative action policies for federal agencies through executive orders if the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Univ. of Michigan case is narrow enough to allow for some wiggle room.

Gephardt’s comment, however, is far more sweeping. He committed himself to issuing executive orders to “overcome” any high court decision he doesn’t like, “tomorrow or any other day.”

Gephardt surely knows better; he’s not only been helping to write federal laws for two decades, he also was an attorney. Our constitutional system simply doesn’t allow for a president to circumvent Supreme Court rulings he or she disagrees with. What would Gephardt say if Bush announced he’s going to issue executive orders to undo high court rulings he believes are “wrong”?

I know this is a presidential race, and I appreciate that occasionally a candidate will pander to an audience, but Gephardt’s comment may come back to haunt him.