Senate must school Trump

Donald Trump, as president-elect, is casually laying out major changes in foreign and domestic policy. A series of proposals raising public concern have culminated in a frightening commitment to renew the nuclear arms race, "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."

Particularly among those who lived through the "Cold War" with school instructions on hiding under desks and building backyard shelters (in both cases futile hysteria), his statements are truly scary.

On a related level of gravity, he has ignored, perhaps because he isn't aware of it, the constitutional "advice and consent" clause of the American Constitution.  Perhaps he is dimly aware of it but, more likely, because his whole life has focused on his personal command with neither advice nor consent, the clause has no cautionary meaning.

The pertinent part of the clause reads: "(The President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for …"

Though the president is the commander in chief of the army, the war power is in the Congress. It is the U.S. Congress that makes laws, not the president. His job is to carry out the expressed and approved will of Congress.

At least two Alaskan are well aware of this clause and its meaning, reflecting the intentions of the constitutional framers in inserting it. Alaska Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan are both well-versed on constitutional issues and the principles of public administration, having served in legislative roles and, in Sullivan's case, major federal executive and military roles.

Whether you voted for or against them in recent elections, you must acknowledge each is a bright and accomplished person.

It is a high irony that each of them well knows, as do virtually all citizens of Alaska, they are far better qualified by experience, background knowledge and temperament than Donald Trump, to serve as U.S. president.

Of course, politics prohibits the slightest public acknowledgment of this truth. Indeed, some are supposed to lie about it to excuse their Trump votes.

How and why we got here is a subject for another day. For now, the public and our senators must deal with the problem of a Trumpian administration from the perspective of their duties as senators as spelled out in the "advise and consent" clause and related constitutional provisions that differentiate between executive and legislative lawmaking and review powers.

For now, each of them, if they have not already done so, can confirm they stand by existing arms control treaties, even while the tools of nuclear war are, under existing law, sharpened up and the constitutionally required consent to Trump's proposed scheme will be withheld.

A forceful assertion of the power of advice and consent will come up with more specifics when President Trump, next year, proposes his various appointees for public office.

Several of them have followed Trump's lead by announcing policies both the incoming president and the Senate have yet to confirm. Among the most conspicuous of these was the announcement by his designee for ambassador to Israel, who said he intended to move the embassy to Jerusalem, which he recognized as the nation's capital city.

Whatever one's views on whether a continued settlement and ground game expansion is desirable in Palestine, it is not for an unconfirmed ambassadorial nominee to make the choice.

A conspicuous factor in the president-elect's nominees for high office has been the conflicts among them. Trump can be expected to treat his Cabinet appointees like corporate CEOs in his "Your Fired" routine. He will be puzzled to find each officer has an independent obligation to follow the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The Senate must be prepared to give him a vigorous education.

John Havelock is a former Alaska attorney general and former White House Fellow. He lives in Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.