Warren presidency would pose risk to Constitution

There’s a brewing constitutional crisis, and it is the Elizabeth Warren surge in the Democratic primaries.

Should the Massachusetts senator become president of the United States, she will undertake a historic bout of federal activism unmoored from any serious consideration of constitutional constraints.

This would far exceed the current “constitutional crisis” over the Ukraine controversy. Impeachment involves the House of Representatives exercising a responsibility clearly bestowed on it with broad latitude by the U.S. Constitution, to punish an act by President Donald Trump that was foolish and improper, but also squarely within his constitutional powers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to say Trump violated the Constitution on his call with the Ukrainian president, but there’s no serious argument for this. The conduct of foreign policy – and horse-trading with foreign leaders – is a core presidential duty.

The problem was mingling personal political priorities with actions in his official capacity, a symptom of one of the worst aspects of Trump’s presidency, namely his inability or unwillingness to distinguish between himself and his office. Trump doesn’t think institutionally or constitutionally.

In contrast to his carelessness and highly personalized view of the presidency, Warren offers a carefully thought-out agenda of open contempt for legal and constitutional boundaries. It’s not that she, a former Harvard Law professor, doesn’t know that they exist; it’s that she doesn’t care.

Her broad approach is if she doesn’t like something about America, she’ll act as president to ban it or curtail it, whether she has the legal or constitutional authority or not. This isn’t a trait personal to her. Instead, it is inherent to progressive government, which from its beginnings in the early 20th century strained against constitutional limits it considered antiquated and unnecessary.

One of Warren’s signature domestic proposals is her wealth tax. Without dwelling on the complex legal arguments, her plan is constitutionally dubious, at best, and would instantly end up in the Supreme Court if it ever passed.

Someone scrupulously committed to the Constitution would want to steer clear on this basis alone, but “constitutionally or legally suspect” is the unifying thread of much of the Warren agenda.

All you need to know about how seriously most of the left takes the Constitution is that at the same time it’s freaking out about Trump, it’s boosting the prospects of Elizabeth Warren, who is promising to ignore it as a matter of policy.