Leave it to Congress
When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, a key provision in the Amendment left it to Congress to decide its scope and implementation, and Congress passed laws accordingly.
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday held that a presidential Executive Order was not enough to override a Constitutional provision. But as noted in one of the dissenting opinions, Congress does have the right to make changes.
Yes, in the normal process of amending the Constitution…but because the Amendment itself uniquely gave Congress implementation power, the current members could gavel into session and pass a law revising the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment and limiting birthright citizenship—in other words, the same thing the presidential Executive Order would have done. But it’s up to Congress to act.
So don’t get your hopes up…because this Congress has been a disappointment over its first 18 months.
Past Democrat-held majorities were known for their lack of days in session. The current Congress started strong, by figuring that the job was to be in session and added several regular “be ready to go to the floor and vote” days.
Of late, however, when the going has gotten tough, both the House and Senate will cancel the schedule and leave town…often one taking off and forcing the other to take action on a key pending piece of legislation.
They won’t get a budget done in time, and we’ll likely have a government shutdown on October 1…there’s still no completed five-year farm bill…and the list goes on. So what’s the chance they’ll legislatively move on birthright citizenship?
Because if left to Congress…the only thing they’ll agree on is adjourning early to campaign for re-election.
