The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995

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American Thinker:

June 8, 2015

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995

By Jerrold L. Sobel

This past Wednesday, despite the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and the will of the current Congress, President Obama joined the ranks of previous feckless administrations refusing to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

 

In all fairness to Obama, from Clinton onward, this law, which unambiguously gives full U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, has been skirted by presidential order under the guise of national security interests.

 

So what’s so heinous about this act that every Congress since 1995 has reiterated it, yet it still has not been enacted into law by executive order? Let’s have a look

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The article above fits right in with the one SrWoodchuck posted Posted 19 August 2011 - 05:46 PM http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/15/white-house-mischief/

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The Supreme Court Decision on Jerusalem Lets Obama Ignore Reality

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary06.08.2015 - 2:45 PM

The problem with American Middle East policy during the Obama administration has always boiled down to one factor: the president and his foreign policy team prefer their fantasies about the way things should be to the cold hard reality of Palestinian rejectionism, Islamist terror, or Iran’s ambitions for regional hegemony. That hasn’t worked out well for America or its allies, as the U.S. has suffered setback after setback with the collapse of revived peace negotiations that were doomed to fail, Hamas’ hold on Gaza, Iran’s growing power, and the rise of ISIS. But let it not be said that the president hasn’t won any victories. By siding with the administration in the case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the executive branch’s constitutional power to recognize foreign governments. In this instance, that meant allowing the president to declare that, contrary to an act of Congress as well as the facts on the ground, Obama is entitled to pretend that the city of Jerusalem isn’t the capital of Israel or even part of the Jewish state. This triumph may cause celebration in the White House as well as among Israel’s foes. But it should also be put down as yet another win for fantasy over reality as well as one that won’t further the cause of peace.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/06/08/supreme-court-decision-on-jerusalem/

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Symposium: Justice Thomas gets it right in Zivotofsky

By Michael Ramsey on Jun 9, 2015 at 4:58 pm

Michael D. Ramsey is the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law and Director of the International & Comparative Law Programs at the University of San Diego Law School.

In Zivotofsky v. Kerry, Justice Clarence Thomas’s partial concurrence/partial dissent argues that “[t]he President is not constitutionally compelled to implement [the statute relating to Jerusalem] as it applies to passports because passport regulation falls squarely within his residual foreign affairs powers and Zivotofsky has identified no source of congressional power to require the President to list Israel as the place of birth for a citizen born in Jerusalem on that citizen’s passport.” I think this is the right approach for three reasons.

First, Thomas’s approach takes the issues in the correct order. If Congress lacks an enumerated power to pass a statute, the president need not follow it, regardless of whether it infringes an exclusive presidential power. The majority skips straight to the exclusivity question, an approach that disregards the centrality to our constitutional structure of Congress’s limited powers. http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-justice-thomas-gets-it-right-in-zivotofsky/#more-228866

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Symposium: President wins in Zivotofsky: Will there be another battle?

By Alan Morrison on Jun 9, 2015 at 3:39 pm

Alan B. Morrison is the Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest & Public Service Law, George Washington University Law School. He filed an amicus brief in the case in support of the Zivotofsky family. He is also the author of “The Sounds of Silence: The Irrelevance of Congressional Inaction in Separation of Powers Litigation,” 81 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1211 (2013), which discusses some of the issues raised by this case.

Yesterday in Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the Supreme Court awarded the president a major victory in a separation-of-powers dispute with Congress. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion, in which Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined, concluded that (a) the president has the exclusive power to recognize foreign governments, ( the power of recognition extends beyond the formal designation to include statements mandated by Congress that would be inconsistent with the official recognition, and © Congress has no power, by statute, to interfere with the president’s recognition power, including in this case to require the State Department to honor the request of the parents of a child born in Jerusalem that his passport indicate that he was born in Israel (instead of Jerusalem), when the official policy of the president (and all his predecessors) was that the status of Jerusalem was unsettled, and that it is not officially part of Israel. Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the result, but not the majority’s rationale. Chief Justice John Roberts filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justice Samuel Alito, and they both joined a longer dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia. There is so much to discuss in these opinions that this post can only be a summary or first cut.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-president-wins-in-zivotofsky-will-there-be-another-battle/#more-228851

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Symposium: Zivotofsky was not about recognition by Congress or the President

By Eugene Kontorovich on Jun 9, 2015 at 2:54 pm

Eugene Kontorovich is a professor of law at Northwestern University Law School He was the co-author, with Alan Gura, of an amicus brief in the case for the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law and Constitutional Law Professors.

The Court’s decision in Zivotofsky v. Kerry was quite close, especially given Justice Clarence Thomas’s odd concurrence in the result. The Court eschewed resting the opinion on a general foreign affairs power, instead focusing on a specific recognition power. This approach has the advantage of having at least some textual peg, however loose (the Ambassadors Clause). There is also much precedent for particular presidential discretion in this area. The opinion’s innovation consists of declaring the power to be exclusive.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/symposium-zivotofsky-was-not-about-recognition-by-congress-or-the-president/#more-228847

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Supreme Court Turns Minor Case Into a Potential Constitutional Conflict

 

John Yoo June 9, 2015 3 COMMENTS

 

At first glance, yesterday’s Supreme Court decision inZivotofsky v. Kerry — holding that Congress couldn’t force the executive branch to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel on a passport — seems destined to end up as but a footnote in most constitutional law books. It only decides whether the president or Congress controls the content of U.S. passports. But because Zivotofsky involves the treatment of Jerusalem, it adds to the president’s foreign affairs arsenal and could affect the struggle over U.S. Middle East policy, such as an Iranian nuclear deal

https://ricochet.com/supreme-court-turns-minor-case-into-a-potential-constitutional-conflict/

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Jerusalem Passport decision broader than it seems?

Posted by William A. Jacobson ▪ June 10, 2015 at 8:30am

 

So what can Congress do when it comes to foreign policy legislation?

 

I was a guest Tuesday morning on The Tony Katz Show on WICB Indianapolis.

 

The topic was the Zivotofsky case discussed earlier this week, Supreme Court Overturns Congress on Jerusalem Passport Law. I made the point that while the majority decision purported to make the decision very narrow, it’s likely that the decision would be used to try to limit Congressional legislation more broadly as relates to foreign policy:

https://soundcloud.com/93wibc/william-a-jacobson

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/06/jerusalem-passport-decision-broader-than-it-seems/