Posted on 03/07/2006 4:35:14 PM PST by mathprof
Efforts by Republican leaders to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned firm's acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed today when House leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) will attach the legislation as early as Wednesday to a must-pass emergency spending bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A House vote on the measure next week will set up a direct confrontation with President Bush, who has vowed to veto any bill delaying or stopping Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
"Listen, this is a very big political problem," said House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), explaining that he had to give his rank-and-file members a chance to vote on the issue. "There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato."
Since the Dubai port issue exploded last month, the Bush administration, GOP leaders and DP World officials have tried to calm the political waters. In a deal brokered by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), DP World resubmitted its acquisition this week to the administration for a 45-day national security investigation.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Bring it on!
Wonder how many liberals will vote to kill the deal???? That means they are against their fair haired leader bjclinton.
Just like the pork spending .. they attach it to an important bill
So the House doesn't want to wait 45 days? They first complain they don't know anything about it, and then they want to kill it before they know anything about it?
One more reason why the President needs to have line-item veto power.
INSANITY!!! Ok I am just a tad curious. I thought we were going to have a 45 day review to get the facts out there. Thats what people wanted right. And we have been having a pretty vigorious debate on it here at FR, Now forget the review forget the facts we are going to kill it. Yep makes perfect sense
Not only that .. they attach it to an important bill that is needed
Instead of passing a a port bill on it on it's on merits
Heck no. The president should *never* have the line item veto. This gives the executive branch of government the power to substantially change/alter the intent of laws created by the legislative and as such is a subversion of the separation of powers delineated in the constitution.
Bush is going to veto it either way.
Don't 46 State governors have the power and the sky didn't fall on them?
Read the proposal the President sent up to the hill.
He's asking for a line item veto BEFORE Congress votes on a final passage of a bill
I cant believe a Republican would attach it to a emergency spending bill for our troops. I would like to see the justification for that.
After which that veto will be overridden.
Going to make him look like a political irrelevency, it is.
Pretty big investment of political capital.
So big it really really makes you think about what is important to this administration...
I seem to recall Congress passing a line-item veto a few years ago. I also recall that the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. I never understood why. Maybe because of the reasons you cite.
However, I don't like it when Congress packs a whole bunch of unrelated junk into bills that really have to be passed. This is how we get a lot of pork projects passed, and this is also how we get into situations like the one that is developing now. I wish they were not allowed to do that.
think this fight is nasty????
wait until spectre's phantom amnesty bill comes up in a week or two, it will be a bloodbath
It puts the President in a bit of a box. Would he veto a military appropriation bill over the ports issue? Would the veto be overridden?
Would Congress risk the appropriation bill over an issue they don't know anything about?
What's the Senate's take on this?
I guess we'll find out soon enough.
the cowardly thing to do would be sit back and do nothing allowing us to be bowled over by bush's "free trade at all costs" agenda
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