Bush can fire border official, judge says

SEATTLE – President Bush does have the authority to fire the head of a little-known agency that oversees caretaking of the U.S.-Canada border, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Dennis Schornack, the American head of the International Boundary Commission, found himself in trouble when he threatened to tear down a retaining wall built by a couple in Blaine. Schornack said the wall, though it was on the couple’s property, stuck out three feet into a 10-foot zone along the border that had to remain free of obstruction.

The property owners sued, and when the White House tried to fire Schornack, he insisted he couldn’t be fired and that he was simply trying to do his job. He claimed the language of the 1908 and 1925 treaties that created the border commission did not allow for commissioners to be removed except by death, resignation or disability.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said that was a strong argument, but she ultimately disagreed.

“The 1908 and 1925 treaties do not create judicially enforceable individual rights regarding appointment or removal,” she wrote. “The treaties create obligations between (the U.S. and Canada) that are enforceable through political and diplomatic channels, or by other remedies available in international law, not by individuals in domestic courts.”

Brian Hodges, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, represents the couple who built the 4-foot-high retaining wall. He said he was pleased that their lawsuit, which seeks to prevent their wall from being torn down, could move forward.

“This has been an unfortunate distraction in bringing their claims before the court,” he said. “It really didn’t matter to us which commissioner was defending it.”

The couple, Shirley-Ann and Herbert Leu, “were given no notice of the existence of a buffer zone and no avenue for appeal,” Hodges said. “Their property has been taken without any avenue to seek review or compensation.”