The Week Ahead - and the impact of constitutional principles

My apologies – a bout of illness has kept Washminster ‘grounded’ for the last week – but, hopefully, the blog will be back from now on.

It’s an interesting week ahead. The big event should be Tuesday’s State of the Union speech by the President. (Wednesday, very early hours – if you are in the UK). It will set out the legislative agenda that the President would like to see. However, unlike the Queen’s Speech, which is written for her by the Government, Obama doesn’t have the power to enforce his will. In the UK the Government can announce its programme – and know that it will get most if not all its programme through. This is (at least for the Executive) shows the downside of the separation of powers.

Michael Gove will be accused of misleading Parliament over his knowledge of bullying by his aides. He told the Education Select Committee recently that he had not heard of any complaints, but a major payoff was made to a complainant. Either he misled the committee or he is incredibly unaware of what is going on in his department. Either way, because there is a coalition majority – and he commands the confidence of the Prime Minister – he’s not going to face any parliamentary imposed sanction.

On the other hand – separation of powers again at the heart of this – Obama will face a challenging week as his nominees for the Cabinet face confirmation in the Senate. He can’t rely on the Executive controlling the legislature as it does in Britain.

SOTU

This evening, or Wednesday morning in the UK, President Obama will make his way from the White house to Capitol Hill - to give the "State of the Union" to a joint session of Congress.

While I will be working on the Hill during the day, I have no intention of being around for this evening - security will be tight, and it will be difficult to move around - so I should be watching it on C-SPAN with friends in Northern Virginia.

Details of the C-SPAN coverage can be found here. There will be a BBC News Special at 2am on Wednesday (UK time).

Previous Washminster articles on SOTU can be accessed below
2008, 2010

SOTU Reactions

These were some of the reactions to last nights State of the Union speech (links)

Speaker of the House

Wahington Post - Chris Cillizza (The Fix)

ABC News - Factcheck

NPR

Tonight's SOTU

Tonight (or in the arly hours of tomorrow morrow morning if you are on the eastern side of the Atlantic), President Obama will give his annual "State of the Union" Address to Congress. The Constitution Article 2 Section 3 requires that the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient". The first SOTU was given by President Washington, but Jefferson ceased the practice of a speech to Congress because he felt it was too monarchical. Until 1913 the SOTU was a written message sent to, and read to Congress by, a Clerk. President Wilson re-established the practice of an annual joint address - which includes both information of the state of the Union and an outline of the President's legislative agenda.

The speech will be broadcast on most news networks. C‑SPAN’s LIVE coverage starts with a historical look at Presidents in their first year in office (8pm/UK 1am), followed by the President’s address (9pm/UK 2am). Then, the Republican response by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and viewer reaction.