Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, March 30, 2015

Ted Cruz Plan Could Weaken The Enforcement Of Iran Sanctions

WASHINGTON -- Just days after announcing his presidential bid, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is pushing legislation that would wildly escalate the Republican Party's deregulatory fervor. On Wednesday, Cruz filed a simple but sweeping budget amendment that would "eliminate all criminal penalties for offenses established by agency regulations" -- a clause that covers everything from environmental rules to sanctions against Iran.

The amendment would eliminate a tremendous amount of corporate crime -- not by getting rid of the wrongdoing itself, but by simply reclassifying the violations as strictly civil, rather than criminal. Many regulations carry only civil penalties, but others carry criminal penalties as well, allowing the Department of Justice to prosecute companies and individuals for those violations. Regulatory agencies write rules to implement laws passed by Congress.

The GOP has been pursuing a broad and aggressive deregulation agenda for several years. A host of Republicans have introduced bills designed to hamstring regulators with additional red tape when issuing rules, and to make it harder for agencies to impose costs on companies in the pursuit of the public good.

Cruz's legislation goes much further, and would have effects far beyond the typical GOP targets of Obamacare, the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the Environmental Protection Agency's coal standards.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, for instance, is the agency responsible for administering sanctions against Iran. Those sanctions generally bar U.S. companies or individuals from doing business with Iranian firms or Iranian officials. Violating the sanctions can be either a civil or a criminal offense, with criminal penalties including a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. If Cruz's budget plan were implemented, it would eliminate those criminal penalties, weakening the sanctions regime.

In a Monday speech announcing his presidential run, Cruz billed himself as a hard-liner on Iran. He was also one of the 47 Republican senators who signed a controversial letter to Iranian leaders organized by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) earlier this month.

Cruz's office declined to comment for this article, but the senator probably doesn't actually want to see weaker penalties for sanctions violations. And in all likelihood, the Cruz amendment won't ever be implemented. It's a nonbinding budget resolution, rather than a final appropriations decree, and it may not even receive a vote on the Senate floor. If a measure to defund the criminal enforcement of regulatory standards ever did become part of a final appropriations bill, President Barack Obama would likely kill it with a veto.

Nevertheless, it's a pretty wild way for Cruz to follow up on his official entrance to the 2016 field.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Zach Carter

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