Posted on 06/28/2006 8:26:44 AM PDT by hipaatwo
WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Arlen Specter, said yesterday that he is ``seriously considering" filing legislation to give Congress legal standing to sue President Bush over his use of signing statements to reserve the right to bypass laws.
Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, made his comments after a Judiciary Committee hearing on signing statements, which are official documents that Bush has used to challenge the constitutionality of more than 750 laws when signing legislation .
Bush has issued more signing statements than all previous presidents combined. But he has never vetoed a bill, depriving Congress of any chance to override his judgment. If Congress had the power to sue Bush, Specter said, the Supreme Court could determine whether the president's objections are valid under the Constitution.
``There is a sense that the president has taken the signing statements far beyond the customary purviews," Specter said at the hearing. He added that ``there's a real issue here as to whether the president may, in effect, cherry-pick the provisions he likes, excluding the provisions he doesn't like. . . . The president has the option under the Constitution to veto or not."
But a lawyer for the administration, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michelle Boardman, testified that Bush has shown Congress respect by using signing statements instead of vetoes when he has concerns about parts of bills.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Ping!
He's not going to change his mind or his spots, so it's a great opportunity to unload on this Judas.
Leni
The sad reality is that Congress has become less and less willing to write narrowly-constructed bills. This is a mess because sometimes you have a Clinton and sometimes you have an Eisenhower and you never really know which one you will have in the Oval Office.
HE'LL NEVER DO IT!!! He's all blow and NO go...besides he'll be ordered to stand down or or or........
He didn't help diddly.
He couldn't stop them. On top of that, in exchange for WH support for his reelection Specter made a deal to get those 2 nominees out of committee.
He's done that, but before that and since then, he is a major PITA who sides with the left more often than not.
Specter's world view is not the same as that of most Republicans and not at all that of conservatives. He is a big spending, more taxes, gun grabbing, baby killing Democrat who is a Republican only because the Democrat slot was too crowded when he ran for DA in Philly.
He's never changed registration to reflect his true allegiances and he only does enough good to get "R" votes when the next election rolls around.
Remember this, you can always count on Specter when you DON'T need him.
I regularly call his office and suggest he get that traitor Leakey Leahy off his speed dial.
Bush has issued more signing statements than all previous presidents combined.
So that means that Pres. Bush has 110 signing statements, Clinton 105 and all the previous 41 presidents had.....4!?
I just wish people wouldn't jump in with knee jerk reactions all the time, as has become the apparent custom since the Meiers nomination.
There was a time when FReepers did research on a subject they weren't sure about in order to see if their initial opinion was correct or in error. There were more researchers and fewer knee jerkers. I miss those days.
Wow, I must have been out of the loop longer than I thought. When did the POTUS start appointing the SINators of Pennsylvania? When did the voters quit making that choice?
That is, of course, unless they're criticizing him.
What a typical lib crackpot statement.
No sir, the most patriotic thing a person can do is put on the uniform of the United States Military.
Just my opinion.
>Signing statements have been around since George Washington, the gripe with Bush is that, he uses them far more often, and in different ways, and voices concerns allowing for them to be used to strike down parts of a bill.
Sure, but I wish he would just veto a lot more of the garbage Congress sends his way.
Now... DUMP MURTHA
Pennsylvania - some place - Spectre, Murtha and Fast Eddie Rendell - now there's a Trifecta.
It's just the Buchannonites crawling out of the woodwork to Bushbash. And I speak as someone who really DID vote for Toomey, though I knew he would lose. His AIM was too high for his name recognition. End of story. However, it's a lot easier to blame Bush and Santorum instead.
Unions. That's why we're stuck with Fast Eddie making E.O.'s like mad and trying to ban most cars on the road today.
"Respect for the Legislative Branch in this circumstance is not shown by the veto of an otherwise well crafted bill, but by an honest and public signing statement. Compared to vetoing a bill, giving constitutionally infirm provisions a “saving” interpretation through a signing statement gives fuller effect to the wishes of Congress by giving complete effect to the great bulk of a law’s provisions and the fullest possible effect to even constitutionally problematic provisions. This approach is not an affront to Congress. Instead, it gives effect to the well-established legal presumption that Congress did not choose to enact an unconstitutional provision. As Assistant Attorney General Dellinger explained, this practice is “analogous to the Supreme Court’s practice of construing statutes, where possible, to avoid holding them unconstitutional.” 17 Op. O.L.C. at 133. A veto, by comparison, would render all of Congress’s work a nullity, even if, as is often the case, the constitutional concerns involve relatively minor provisions of major legislation. The value of this ability to preserve legislation has grown in step with the use of large omnibus bills in the last few decades. "
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1969&wit_id=5479
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