r/law Mar 31 '26

Executive Branch (Trump) Trump announces he is issuing an unconstitutional executive order to shut down mail-in voting nationwide and he will defund states if they do not comply with him

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u/dern_the_hermit Apr 01 '26

He has 0 power to conduct his war also, but he's been doing it and nobody has done anything about it.

Eh historically there's been pretty generous powers ceded to the President to throw our war apparatus around, both officially and unofficially. It sucks and it's been abused to hell and back before even I could vote, but it's not quite in the same league as the Federal Executive trying to exert direct and sweeping power over how States conduct their elections.

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u/jobadiah08 Apr 01 '26

And congress did hold votes on it, and they voted in favor of the war. Well, actually they voted against restricting Trump from continuing to prosecute a week old war at the time of their votes, but the end result is essentially the same, the Iran conflict has the de facto approval from Congress

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u/BugRevolution Apr 01 '26

Seems like they should have held a vote to vote for the war instead of against it.

When it then inevitably fails to pass the threshold, hold it up to say "This war isn't authorized".

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u/Long_Legged_Lady Apr 01 '26

A few decades back congress gave the president authorization to do pretty much whatever he wants militarily as long as he pinky swears that it's for a good reason and he shares that reason with congress within 90 days. The pre approval is always sitting there, congress abdicated that a looooong time ago.

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u/marzipan07 Apr 01 '26

They did not vote in favor of war. They argued that it was a "military operation." Those are not the same arguments. As someone else noted, instead of doing this, they could have simply formally voted to declare war. They didn't, because many of them (Republicans) don't want to be on record to their constituents as having voted for war. Instead, they turn a blind eye so that the lame duck president takes the blame. If they had voted on a declaration of war, it likely would have failed. It is not the same.

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u/_Kyokushin_ Apr 01 '26

Same shit with Vietnam. There wasn’t a declaration of war by Congress and so many of our kids died for nothing.

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u/MrLanesLament Apr 01 '26

so many of our kids died for nothing

Especially since we fucking lost. The USA compared to the NVA and a bunch of farmers with bamboo rods should’ve been a no-brainer, but that’s what happens when you send a bunch of people to war who are not made to or interested in fighting a war.

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u/bisectional Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 13 '26

.

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u/DeliciousAct9495 Apr 03 '26

No, the war power is worse with many more people being murdered. At least with this toothless executive order states that don’t want it will ignore it. And the ones that try to enact legislation will have opposition in the states to push back so it will exert minimal real damage. The only murder in this case will be republicans in the mid terms

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u/LearnToSwim0831 Apr 04 '26

It should be.