She says she would act unilaterally to expand background checks for gun purchases, circumventing Congress. She wants to tax lobbying, an activity protected under the First Amendment, in yet another constitutionally fraught initiative. She wants to break up Big Tech, although it’s not clear under what authority.
Tellingly, almost no one on her side says, “I appreciate what you’re getting at Liz, but you can’t do that.”
To their credit, a couple of CNN panelists pressed her in July on the constitutional basis of her wealth tax, and she just waved them off. Her answer came down to the assertion that if a majority supports the tax, it should pass muster. Needless to say, the op-ed pages and airwaves weren’t thick with denunciations of her casual dismissal of the Constitution.
This gets to a marked, and annoying, hypocrisy in the reaction to Trump’s Ukraine call. The same people who are most convinced that it is somehow unconstitutional or illegal, didn’t raise a peep when President Barack Obama rewrote immigration law on his own after repeatedly, and correctly, saying he didn’t have the power to do it.
