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 ...
I think Specter may be on the correct side of this one. A signing statement seems like a quasi-line-item veto. This is about the executive vs the legislative, and I think it's and appropriate debate. But yeah, "Specter is a douche" is much simpler and easier an argument.
Really which constitution, ours or the hidden Scottish one?
``Signing statements are an appropriate means by which the president fulfills his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
Specter is a Clymer, we all agree, but the passive-aggressive childishness of signing something, then saying you won't enforce it is exactly the opposite of 'faithful execution.'
Bush 'enforcement' of immigration laws shows where this leads.
Spectre: "I will bring down Bush AND the GOP with my latest "golden bullet" plan."
The Congress does in fact have the power to "make all laws." Seems to me "signing statements" are questionable.
When is the cancer going to finish eating his brain?
Snarlin Arlen is one DISLOYAL, UNGRATEFUL POS!!
In discussing Angus MacSpecter, the NO PROFANITY rule is torture.
Congress can pass laws all they want but that does not mean the laws they pass are constitutional.
That's the issue right there. The president does not have constitutional authority to strike down parts of a law. He can veto or sign. That's it.
first veto?
I hate Arlen.
The president can sign a law or veto it. He can't alter it.
HOLY @#$% ping...has he completly lost his last reaming brain cell?
Back during the Administration of Richard Nixon (Remember him? He was in all the papers.), the President refused to spend certain funds that had been authorized by Congress, because he disagreed with the purpose. He claimed Executive authority to do that.
Assorted folks filed suit, and in due course the Supreme Court ruled that Congress was right and the President was wrong, and the funds had to be spent as designated. But when you apply that thinking to "signing statements," the logic falls apart.
President Bush is not saying, as President Nixon did say, that he will not follow a law duly passed by Congress. President Bush is only expressing his opinion about the law.
And if it is possible to file suit to force a politician to stop expressing his opinion, most of the Senate Democrats and an occasional so-called Republican like Spector, deserve that treatment long before President Bush does.
P.S. Interested in a Freeper in Congress? Keep in touch with me.
Congressman Billybob
I loved the way the chairman of AT&T the other day threw back stuff at Specter when he tried bullying to answer a question the way he wanted in answered. Specter really made an ass out of himself to the point I ALMOST felt sorry for him.
uuuhh...that would be "remaining"...lol
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