Very Brief Addition to the Last Post

Adding to the discussion in the previous post, take a few minutes to read a federal judge’s 1984 ruling in Conyers v. Reagan.

Those names alone should hint at the outline of the dispute. Members of Congress sued the Reagan administration over the president’s decision to order the military to invade Grenada without congressional authorization, asking the courts to order the troops to cease fire and get back on the boat: “For relief, plaintiffs request that this Court invoke its equitable powers and grant plaintiffs a writ of mandamus and/or an injunction directing defendants to withdraw the remainder of U.S. Armed Forces personnel from Grenada and also grant plaintiffs a declaratory judgment holding the invasion of Grenada and the continuing occupation by U.S. Armed Forces to be illegal and in violation of the United States Constitution.”

Insert own Judge Boasberg joke here.

But the judge declined: “If the Court were to permit plaintiffs to come before it and litigate this matter, after plaintiffs were unsuccessful in their attempts to forward legislation that addressed their concerns, the Court would unnecessarily and unwisely interfere with the legislative process and raise significant separation of powers concerns.”

Insert own Judge Boasberg joke h— sorry, did I already do that one?

Again, the claim that Trump is venturing into dangerous new territory by using military force without congressional authorization is too silly to entertain. These are new iterations of old debates, and it’s not at all hard to see that Trump isn’t acting against our allegedly sacred political norms. His idea about the boundary of his military authority is historically ordinary. Contestable, debatable, but unremarkable.