Conservatives are Whiny People

Conservative groups are currently latching onto a piece of the Constitution that makes Senator Hillary Clinton ineligible to be Barack Obama's Secretary of State. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution states: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time." This basically means that  no lawmaker can hold a position if the salary for that position has been raised while that lawmaker was in office. 

This is a problem for Senator Clinton as in January, President Bush raised the salary for the Secretary of State and other cabinet positions by $4,700 dollars. Senator Clinton has served in the Senate since January of 2001. The conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch says that the case is closed and shut, that Hillary Clinton cannot be the Secretary of State. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton was quoted as saying "There's no getting around the Constitution's ineligibility clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires".

However many legal scholars are claiming that there are ways around this clause. One such solution is to lower the salary of said position to its previous amount. This happened in 1974 when Ohio Senator William Saxbe was appointed attorney general by President Nixon. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin listed off several other solutions, such as, for Senator Clinton to accept a lower salary, for the Senate to vote on a lower salary, or to simply ignore the problem based on "...the idea that no one has the right, has the standing, to sue to stop her from becoming secretary of state". 

The clause can say what it says, as far as the Obama administration is concerned there are plenty of ways around it. In fact, Obama has said that he was well aware of the clause when he nominated Senator Clinton for the position. Also the public has fully agreed with the decision as a poll showed that 71% of Americans agree with Obama's decision. Overall the conservative groups such as the Judicial Watch Committee need to get over the fact that they lost and allow the Obama administration to move ahead unhindered. When there is clearly precedent to accept Clinton to her nominated position, the conservatives should allow it to happen and stop whining.