Trump’s constitutionally illiterate Cabinet

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, especially for those who have a duty to uphold and enforce it. What is the American public to think when Donald Trump’s Cabinet members, people in the line of presidential succession, are ignorant of the United States Constitution?

{mosads}Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the world that Congress could give President Trump a “line-item veto” for the budget so he could eliminate budget items individually, a power that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a year after Congress attempted to implement such a power for President Bill Clinton.

The issue came up when President Trump signed the 2018 Omnibus Budget Bill, and then that complained he never wanted to sign a similar bill. He said:

“To prevent the omnibus situation from ever happening again, I’m calling on Congress to give me a line-item veto for all government spending bills.“

Mnuchin later said on Fox News Sunday, “I think they should give the president a line-item veto,” to which the show’s host, Chris Wallace, noted that line-item veto power has “been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.”

Trump wants line-item veto despite Supreme Court ruling it unconstitutional https://t.co/Du0psi9O8f pic.twitter.com/5we5UuPM89

— The Hill (@thehill) March 24, 2018

Replied Mnuchin: “Congress could pass a rule, OK, that allows them to do it.”

The Treasury secretary is fifth in line for the presidency, so Mnuchin’s ignorance of the Constitution regarding presidential veto use is astounding. Yale graduates like Mnuchin would have read the Constitution, one thinks.

Another Yalie in Trump’s Cabinet, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, also seems to be ignorant of the Constitution. The office of Secretary Ross announced that the 2020 Census, which his Commerce Department supervises, will include a question about citizenship.

The Constitution in Article 1, Section 2 requires that a census (or, as the original wording says, an “Enumeration”) “shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Former GOP lawmaker: “Answering the US Census is your civic — and legal — duty” https://t.co/0DBsZ5rePP pic.twitter.com/GSEAci649I

— The Hill (@thehill) April 2, 2018

It must be noted that the constitutional mandate for an “Enumeration” does not mention “citizens” at all. It only mentions “persons” and, although the citizenship question was added in 1820, it doesn’t appear in the Constitution’s provision mandating the census, nor was it included in the first three censuses. And it was dropped from 1950 until 1970.

Secretary Ross has resurrected the question despite the fact it has been used in the annual American Community Survey, in which 3.5 million people are carefully surveyed every year.

So, why resurrect the citizenship question now?

It fits into the ultra-right campaign that has solid footing in the White House, spearheaded by presidential aide Stephen Miller.

Not to be forgotten, of course, is what Trump himself said when announcing his candidacy:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

This census kerfuffle is a big deal.

It affects federal money and congressional representation for states like Texas, the second largest in the Union, and California, the largest state and the one with the largest number of non-citizens.

“Stop ginning up hysteria: Citizenship question on census is nothing new” https://t.co/ix1O49eiVl pic.twitter.com/D5bvThSs1W

— The Hill (@thehill) March 30, 2018

Almost every congressional district is drawn post-census every 10 years. Each district is allocated based on its population – not the number of citizens, and not the number of voters.

Many observers suggest it is highly likely that non-citizens might not be keen on participating in the census if they think the government might suspect they are here illegally. Uncooperative non-citizens will result in fewer people being counted, thus producing final counts that are lower than counts including non-citizens.

The second reason states with large non-citizen populations like Texas and California will suffer is that funding for federal programs is allocated and appropriated by population. If the census reports fewer people than actually reside in, say, Texas, then fewer dollars will come from federal coffers.

The White House maintains it doesn’t have any intention to use the census to crack down on non-citizens in the U.S. but that is cold comfort.

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and organized our government didn’t bother to ask the citizenship question for the first 30 years of our existence. For whatever reasons, the Trump administration thinks it is important to do so now.

It will be worked out in the courts, however. California already has filed suit against the census change, and other states have already joined that lawsuit. The Supreme Court will probably ultimately decide the issue — not Trump’s appointees who don’t know the Constitution.

Raoul Lowery Contreras is the author of “The Mexican Border: Immigration, War and a Trillion Dollars in Trade” (Floricanto Press 2016) and “The Armenian Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy” (Berkeley Press 2017). He formerly wrote for the New American News Service of the New York Times.