Does Pelosi Have A Constitutional Right To Go on Diplomatic Missions? If So Can This Right Be Found?

Question

If she has broken a constitutional law, how can we deal with her?

The question should read "Where can this right be fouind?"

For the record I'm mostly worried about the constitutional implications of this precident, and have absolutely no problem with Pelosi being a woman. Reading bigotry into this question says more about the reader than it does about the asker...

captain your link doesn't work

If you have ever taken a law class on the Constitution... it's typically called "Constitutional Law" .. so yes it is possible to break constitutional law.

Answer 1

Nancy Pelosi has a constitutional right to flap her yap trap and she has exercised the right quite frequently.

Answer 2

The only way I can conceive of Pelosi having a right to go on a diplomatic mission is if the President had appointed her as an official ambassador which he did not. So any diplomatic agreement that she could have made would not be binding in the least. So while she can travel any where she wants to and meet with foreign leaders, she would have no authority to negotiate anything without first being appointed an ambassador by the president. And that right is found in the constitution under the powers of the President of the United States.

Answer 3

The question is not whether she has the right. The question is whether there is anything in the Constitution forbidding what she is doing. Obviously not, or Republicans would have already been calling for her impeachment from office, which would be the only remedy I can think of for violating the Constitution. There are no "constitutional laws" that people can violate. Various bodies pass laws, and they are either constitutional or not.

As to the underlying issue, she is one person in this country who is showing some genuine leadership. You always talk to your enemies, unless it's absolutely impossible. That's what diplomacy is about. Anyone can talk to their friends. Jeez, just think about Nixon going to China . . .

The executive branch may be in charge of foreign policy, but Congress is a co-equal branch of the federal government. So, for instance, any treaty Bush might want to enter into would have to be approved by Congress. Members of Congress have the right to travel and learn what they can. Nobody has yet pointed out anything she said or did which hurt the U.S. cause.

Besides all this, do some serious research on our strange relationship with Syria. There are some pretty serious rumors that even now the CIA has some "special" prisons in Syria where we can legally do some "intense" interrogation of terrorist suspects. Syria has periodically played the role of a good guy or a bad guy, depending on what we needed. Sometimes they take off on a tangent of their own, but for some mysterious reason, they often decide to do the bidding of the U.S.

Edited comment: Yes, I know about courses in Constitutional Law. The wording of your original question is did she break "a constitutional law." One reading of that is that you are wondering if she broke a law which has been declared constitutional. But you clearly mean that there is a body of laws known as "constitutional law," and you are wondering if she broke one of those. You go on to ask, if she has broken one of those laws, "how can we deal with her?" I was simply pointing out that this isn't how it works. And that is why you don't know "how to deal with her." There are no Constitution police who go out and arrest people for breaking "constitutional laws."

For example, if you are arrested for writing a disagreeable letter to the editor, the law in your state which made that possible is unconstitutional. Were you to be convicted, you would appeal on that basis, all the way to the Supreme Court if need be. But there is nothing that would immediately happen because someone apparently violated one of the stipulations of the Constitution. A course in constitutional law does not mean that there are laws in the Constitution which if broken one would be arrested for. When studying constitutional law, one studies the document itself and the way it shapes the rest of the laws of the land.

Answer 4

The Executive Branch of the government dictates US foreign policy, not the Legislative Branch. If I recall, she is in violation of the "Logan Act", which prohibits her from doing what she did. It's an older law, but yet it's still a law. It is not up to the Speaker of the House to make a trip overseas to bring up dialogue with a known state sponsor of terrorism, like Syria. I'm quite sure the Syrian terrorists are sitting back and laughing their heads off right now. Pelosi has made this country into a mockery.

Answer 5

I wish I knew what right Ms. Pelosi has to go on diplomatic missions. Perhaps rather than being a constitutional right, it is a right granted under "administrative law" for the congress. It is not very easy to find the code of "administrative law" compared with researching "constitutional law". She may have violated the Logan Act.

On April 10, 2997, an article written by Carla Mariunucci appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, indicating that Ms. Pelosi and Rep. Lantos are interested in making a "diplomatic trip" to Iran.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/10/BAGV9P6C0S6.DTL
Pelosi, Lantos may be interested in diplomatic trip to Iran
Furthermore, the article quoted Rep Lantos as saying that he co-sponsored legislation with Ms. Pelosi which could pass as early as May that calls for making available to all countries --including Iran -- nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under international oversight by establishing a "nuclear fuel bank".

I believe that the legislation is:
HR 6 Clean Energy Act of 2007
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:h6ih.txt.pdf

Those who advocate the "nuclear fuel bank" consider that clean nuclear technology would be available to all countries. However, those who argue against the "nuclear fuel bank" point out that the uranium enrichment process (using centrifuges to separate isotopes as in the FEP at Natanz, Iran) can also be used to produce a more pure grade of uranium 235 which may be used in a nuclear bomb.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4416482.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/28/opinion/edbuffett.php
http://www.goodharborreport.com/node/295

The head of the Iranian Nuclear Energy Organization, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, explains it thus:
The simple way is to inject 0.7% (uranium) and obtain 3.5%, right? Now, if you take this 3.5% and inject it again into the chain (of centrifuges), the result will be 20%. If you inject the 20% back into the chain, the result will be 60%. If you inject this 60%, the result will be 90%.
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1120
http://www.memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S6&P1=2,148&P3=4

Since Iran has uranium enrichment capabilities at its FEP (fuel enrichment plant) at Natanz, giving Iran nuclear "fuel" enriched to 3.5% might not be a good idea if Iran does have the agenda to develop a nuclear bomb.

The BBC article (listed below) describes the nuclear fuel process.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/05/nuclear_fuel/html/mining.stm

Answer 6

No she did not. Congress set the laws, ONLY. They do not have negotiation powers with foreign powers. If the Administrative branch was so minded they could bring up charges against her since she went in direct violation against the president. This is not an old law but part of the Constitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives#Officers
No where in this will you find she is a foreign dignitary.

Answer 7

Well, Constitutionally, Speaker Pelosi is third in line for the Presidency. Her credentials are impeccable.

One doesn't need a "constitutional right" to be a diplomat.... We have many diplomats that travel throughout the world...think Jimmy Carter, members of Congress, etc.

Speaker Pelosi is doing what the idiot in the White House should be....but he doesn't speak to anyone he doesn't like - and he has no skill, lacks the intelligence - and is sadly lacking in any sort of diplomatic abilities.

Answer 8

Pelosi was on a fact-finding mission which is consistent with the legislative authority of Congress under Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution. Of course, that doesn't mean she should have gone or behaved properly while she was there. I think her visit harmed US interests.

Answer 9

Yes she did have the right as the speaker of the house, The Constitution divides the foreign policy powers between the President and Congress but not in a definitive manner. Which means speaker Pelosi is well within her rights and obligations to do so
http://fpc.state.gov/fpc/6172.htm...

Sorry Ididn't know it had gone bad try this info instead

http://www.law.duke.edu/magazine/2005spring/features/powell.html?linker=2

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20061101faessay85607/norman-j-ornstein-thomas-e-mann/when-congress-checks-out.html

Pay Attention to the opening paragragh in the second link it's expresses everything in context
"The making of sound U.S. foreign policy depends on a vigorous, deliberative, and often combative process that involves both the executive and the legislative branches. The country's Founding Fathers gave each branch both exclusive and overlapping powers in the realm of foreign policy, according to each one's comparative advantage -- inviting them, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin has put it, "to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy."

Answer 10

Of course she does. It's called a precedent, and it's not the least bit unusual for ranking members of both parties, and from both houses, to go on diplomatic missions.

Wake up and learn your own country's history. I'm NOT American, and I have no right knowing it better than you do. But I do.

Your opponent is not your enemy, and if you're upset because Pelosi is a woman, then you're a bigot.