Thanks to FW for pointing out the latest threat to the rule of law. Consider this:
The Bush Administration is planning to use money from the $700 billion financial system bailout for an auto industry bailout. To do that, it is seizing on the fact that the bailout statute contains a very broad definition of “financial institution,” which the Administration claims includes virtually any institution, financial or not. The bailout statute defines “financial institutions” eligible for the bailout as ”any institution, including, but not limited to, any bank, savings association, credit union, security broker or dealer, or insurance company.” Never mind that Congress listed as examples of ”financial institutions” only entities that were banks, insurance companies, or financial institutions, not automakers.
The Heritage Foundation and Michelle Malkin have made a strong argument that this violates the financial bailout statute under the principle of statutory construction known as ejusdem generis, which says that when a term’s definition includes examples that are all of a similar kind, it limits the meaning of the term to things similar in kind to such examples.
But if that’s not so, and the bailout was just a big slush fund for the Administration to dispense with as it chooses, then the bailout law itself was unconstitutional, since it conferred unbridled discretion in the hands of the President to do whatever he wanted with it.
We will seemingly do ANYTHING to keep up our prosperity. We will not let our other beliefs (as in the ostensibly free market Republicans coming up with these ideas) stand in the way. Isn’t this Mammon worship on a mammoth scale?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes – it IS Mammon worship, and we are fools to think we can mock God in this way and get away with it. But this is only one of many areas where Americans are deluding themselves into thinking that somehow democratic government gives us a license to nullify God’s laws.
I haven’t read Heritage’s argument, but I don’t think it’s obvious that “ejusdem generis” applies.
First, in its canonical statement, the interpretive rule applies to a general phrase that follows a list of specifics. (In the statute as quoted above, the general phrase precedes the list of specifics; it doesn’t follow it.)
Then Justice Rehnquist quoted a canonical statement of the rule in a 1980 case: “The rule of ejusdem generis ordinarily ‘limits general terms which follow specific ones to matters similar to those specified.’ Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 297 U. S. 128 (1936).”
Secondly, the rule is limited to “general” terms that follow a list of specifics — it does not apply to manifestly expansive terms, as included in this statute (“including, but not limited to . . .”).
If correct, this of course wouldn’t mean it’s a good law, or a wise decision on the part of the President. It’d just mean that it’s legal.
awesome post. I am linking to this.
We can blame the democratic congress as well (and the republicans in the congress now that i think of it…) they actually INVITED Bush to use those funds that way I think…… they gave up their constitutional authority in so doing….
I think that’s a GREAT point. <>
What do you guys think about the argument that President Bush mentioned on Thursday? It says, to let the markets fail would have consequences throughout the world that would be too costly given the interconnectedness of things.
I’m for letting some companies fail and the market correct itself, but have times changed? Is that above argument valid, invalid, irrelevant? Thoughts?