Wikipedia:Peer review/Bricker Amendment old/archive1

Bricker Amendment

Someone put up a request for this article and I have obliged. Someone deleted my section heads, but otherwise no editorial changes have been offered. Anyone have any comments on it? Ave atque vale! PedanticallySpeaking 20:12, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

I like the article and have very little criticism to make. Having heard those two words many times at an age at which my ideas of constitutional law were not well formed, I'm glad to learn at last what it was about. And I have some degree of sympathy for the concerns it tried to deal with, which raises a point that the article might want to cover: at the moment, it's not so much conservatives who worry about treaties and executive agreements as it is anti-globalists. This group, generally left of center, worries a great deal about loss of national rights by means of trade agreements. Also, is there any more to say about what treaties can and cannot do? The Supreme Court has ruled against certain direct abuses of the bill of Rights, but the limits don't seem clear. Perhaps the only law is a small amount of case law, and no more can be said? Finally, has any legal distinction been made in this connection between treaties and executive agreements? (Raising this many questions after saying I had hardly any criticisms is evidence that it got me thinking.) Dandrake 20:31, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. You are right to remark about the "anti-globalists," which would be appropriate terminology for today. But for that time, "conservative" seems more apt and "anti-globalism" is not a term Bricker or those sympathetic to his goals would recognize. The Republican party barely accepted the idea of a United Nations at the time, especially in the Midwestern wing that John Bricker represented. These are the folks who nearly got Robert A. Taft nominated in 1952 rather than Dwight Eisenhower. I'll check into the case law regarding treaties and executive agreements. I expect it to be rather slim, as the Supreme Court has tried to steer clear of the whole issue of Presidents and treaties in recent years--for example, when Goldwater sued Carter over recognizing Red China and dropping recognition of the Taiwanese the Court refused to decide the case on the merits saying it was a political question--but I could be mistaken. I'll have to look at the Guantanmo cases for they dealt with treaties and the reach of the Constitution; they could be relevant. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 15:34, 30 Aug, 2004 (UTC)