Does the Wash Post understand the Constitution?
Ignorance of the Law
Mitt Romney has been justly criticized for politically expedient flip-flopping on abortion: pro in 1994, when he challenged Ted Kennedy for the Senate; anti in 2007, when he decided to run for president; somewhere in between in 2002, when he ran for governor.
But the Washington Post is mistaken in thinking it has found a contemporaneous contradiction in Romney's abortion position:
Romney said this week that as president he would allow individual states to keep abortion legal, two weeks after telling a national television audience that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban the procedure nationwide.
In an interview with a Nevada television station on Tuesday, Romney said Roe. v. Wade should be abolished and vowed to "let states make their own decision in this regard." On Aug. 6, he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he supports a human life amendment to the Constitution that would protect the unborn.
National Review's Kathryn Lopez explains (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmU2NWViNGY5Mzk0YTBhYWFmMGJmNTY0MjkzNzZjOTQ=) why these positions are reconcilable:
He supports a human life amendment but lives in the incremental real world. If Roe is overturned, states will take up the issue. If Roe is overturned, it would be helpful to have a president who supports a federal ban, and who will presumably support those trying to ban abortion in their states (something worth hearing him make clear he would). Romney's position makes sense to me.
Another point: The Post reporter seems to be ignorant about the Constitution. Whatever Romney's opinion of a constitutional amendment on abortion (or any other amendment), it is irrelevant to anything he could do as president.
Amending the Constitution is a purely legislative function, possibly the only purely legislative function in the American system of government. To propose an amendment requires the assent of two-thirds of each house of Congress; to ratify it requires the approval of the legislatures in three-fourths of the states. Once this happens--which is exceedingly rare--the amendment comes into force regardless of the president, who has no veto power.
If Romney wants to amend the Constitution, he should run for Congress again, or for the state Legislature. Journalists, for their part, should be knowledgeable enough not to take terribly seriously would-be presidents' (or actual presidents') pronouncements about constitutional amendments they'd like to see. |
