The Constitution says, "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."
Essentially, you cannot take a job if the salary was increased during your current congressional term. And the salary for cabinet officials has gone up in the past year.
So this is so not really the intent of that clause in the constitution, and it seems weird that it should preclude Obama from his choice at State. But laws are laws, right? It bothers me a little more that Ambinder goes on to suggest that the Senate may just go ahead and willfully disregard the Constitution in confirming Hillary.
I'm not sure which would bother me more. (And for the record, I have no opinion whatsoever regarding whether Hillary at State is a good thing or not.)
3 comments:
Wasn't the provision established so that you could vote to create a position or make it better and then move over into that position. In which case, it seems to apply to this case.
I think if the Senate confirmed her no one would have standing to challenge the confirmation in court, plus it might be immune.
Weird.
I think the intent of the clause was to prevent this being a deliberate or systematic practice -- to prevent legislators from voting themselves sinecures. Nobody would believe that Hillary voted to increase the pay for SoS with the intent that she would be appointed to the office; in fact, she worked hard for a rather different one!
Certainly she was never looking to get herself a better gig when she took over State, but this is exactly the thing the law was trying to stop.
But whatever, it doesn't matter in the least.
And I think she's not particularly qualified to be SecState.
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