Been lurking for a while, thought I'd finally throw in with something I've wondered about off and on. As George said in a recent post, we fight the out of control .Gov by voting. The big problem with voting, is that you only get to do it every 2, 4, or 6 years depending on the office. If you live in CA (unfortunately), you're not represented anyway because there are way more mouth breathers than freedom loving individuals.
What I'd like to know is, can elected officials be held accountable for things they sign into law? Or does holding a public service office somehow put one above the law? Say the Congress passes a bill to confiscate all handguns in the US, or decree that black people have to forfeit all their property (to choose something not firearm related). Those would be direct violations of the Constitution, and to me, that would be illegal. Could we then press criminal or civil charges against those who wrote, or signed the bill? Can we sue them? Try them for treason? Anything? If I violate someones rights, I would expect to be charged with a crime. Being voted into office is not a blank check to do whatever the heck you want. Only being accountable during an election cycle seems a bit too infrequent. I'm sure someone else has come up with this idea well before I did, but I wanted to ask those out there with more legal knowledge than myself. Has anyone given this much thought? If enough senators get thrown in prison, that might keep others from writing so many bills every year. Thoughts anyone?