In a hard hitting essay first published in the Fall 2011 issue of the William & Mary Journal of Women in the Law, Herb Titus critically tracks the process by which the 111th Congress repealed “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” Titus maintains that from start to finish, the Democratic leadership chose to bring about repeal, utilizing an unconstitutional strategy that breached House rules, divested Congress of its legislative powers, and upended the legislative process by entrusting unelected bureaucrats with the power to prescribe the rules of governing sexual behavior in the nation’s land and naval forces. Titus concludes that, by disregarding the constitutional principles of separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism, an irresponsible legislature has set a precedent that will threaten powers reserved to the States over their own militia, and increase the unconstitutional law-making powers already usurped by the courts.
The article’s first publisher, The William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, was established in 1993 “to provide a forum for scholarly debate on gender-related legal issues.”