Opus 2014-153: Headlines: Congress Is Above the Law

One of the dirty secrets of congress is that they don’t practice what they preach.  This is nothing new to me but it was surprising enough to be linked on the Drudge report under the title “Congress routinely passes laws they exempt themselves from”...  You can read it in the Nation Journal.
   
I have known about this a long time.  The basis for this idea is found in Article I, section 6, of the Constitution which says,

“They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be questioned in any other place.”

As you can see they were granted exemption from being arrested so that they could not be coerced or intimidated while in office.  There is some logic to this.  It is to protect congress from the power of the executive and courts.  They have taken this idea and extended it to almost every area of their existence.  They seem to want to protect themselves from life and the voters.

For more information feel free to review the article.

Maybe it is time to clean house with the ballot since we can’t do it with the law.

homo unius libri