Posted on 05/08/2007 7:07:38 PM PDT by Jean S
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.
Pelosi recently told a group of liberal bloggers, “We can take the president to court” if he issues a signing statement, according to Kid Oakland, a blogger who covered Pelosi’s remarks for the liberal website dailykos.com.
“The president has made excessive use of signing statements and Congress is considering ways to respond to this executive-branch overreaching,” a spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said. “Whether through the oversight or appropriations process or by enacting new legislation, the Democratic Congress will challenge the president’s non-enforcement of the laws.”
It is a scenario for which few lawmakers have planned. Indicating that he may consider attaching a signing statement to a future supplemental spending measure, Bush last week wrote in his veto message, “This legislation is unconstitutional because it purports to direct the conduct of operations of the war in a way that infringes upon the powers vested in the presidency.”
A lawsuit could be seen as part of the Democrats’ larger political strategy to pressure — through a series of votes on funding the war — congressional Republicans to break with Bush over Iraq.
Democrats floated other ideas during yesterday’s weekly caucus meeting. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) suggested that the House consider a measure to rescind the 2002 authorization for the war in Iraq. Several senators and Democratic presidential candidates recently have proposed that idea.
“There was a ripple around the room” in support of the idea, said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).
In the 1970s, congressional Democrats tried to get the courts to force President Nixon to stop bombing in Cambodia. The courts ruled that dissident lawmakers could not sue solely to obtain outcomes they could not secure in Congress.
In order to hear an argument, a federal court would have to grant what is known as “standing,” meaning that lawmakers would have to show that Bush is willfully ignoring a bill Congress passed and that he signed into law.
The House would have to demonstrate what is called “injury in fact.” A court might accept the case if “it is clear that the legislature has exhausted its ability to do anything more,” a former general counsel to the House of Representatives, Stanley Brand, said.
Lawmakers have tried to sue presidents in the past for taking what they consider to be illegal military action, but courts have rejected such suits.
A law professor at Georgetown Law Center, Nicholas Rosenkranz, said Bush is likely to express his view on the constitutionality of the next supplemental in writing. Whether Bush has leeway to treat any provision of the supplemental as advisory, however, depends on the wording Congress chooses, Rosenkranz added.
Bruce Fein, who was a Justice Department official under President Reagan, said Democrats seeking to challenge a signing statement would have to try to give themselves standing before filing a lawsuit.
“You’d need an authorizing resolution in the House and Senate … to seek a declaratory judgment from the federal district court that the president, by issuing a signing statement, is denying Congress’s obligation to [hold a veto override vote],” Fein said.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced legislation to that end last year, but the idea of a lawsuit has yet to gain traction in Congress.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said that “the odds would be good” for a signing statement on the next supplemental, considering that Bush has in the past shown a predilection for excusing his administration from contentious bills. But Levin did not offer any clues as to how Democratic leaders would counter Bush.
And Bush could just take her little plane away from her since it is a military asset.
I fear it won't remain soft if they don't get what they want.
It wouldn’t surprise me.
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NEVER FORGET
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A post-WATERGATE Democrat Congress’ cut-off of funding for a then Free South Vietnam’s fight to save its own Freedom during the Vietnam War =
Pictures of a vietnamse Re-Education (SLAVE LABOR) Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
..”JOURNEY from the FALL”.. MoviePremieres = Fall of Saigon CLARITY..
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806248/posts
What Price to pay now
by the still Free, I wonder,
in a new time of war
in a new century
with our own Freedom
now directly at stake
...right here at home..?
12 Million suddenly missing Iraqi purple voting fingers, for starters..?
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NEVER FORGET
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Uh, No Mz Pelosi, you cannot.
A sitting president may not be sued while in office for actions related to the exercise of his duties, PERIOD.
Any judge that didn’t immediately throw this case out would be disbarred inside a week.
Zakly.
More roarings from the mouse!
But according to the Loser here on FR, we are only allowed to compare Iraq with Vietnam. The same Loser did not know what Salafism was (Sunni branch of Islam promoting extreme interpretation of the Koran usually described as fundamentalist Islamic thought). So, I think we can ignore the Loser's opinions and writings.
This woman has drank something thinking she is more important than the POTUS????
Lets get her out of office!!!
As Speaker of the House, technically she does lead 1/3 of the US Government - but not by fiat. She's the Speaker, but she's supposed to be representing the entire House floor - and frankly, she isn't representing me, or my state, or my state's Representatives, with these actions.
I have just one thing to say, “PALIMINO!” http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/12/video-nancy-pelosi-addresses-the-nation-on-snl/
The holder of the knive needs to be careful where they are sticking it. These types of tactics have a way of backfiring.
And .. as they typically do .. she has continually whined about Bush’s “power grab” .. when in reality it’s the dems who are trying to wrestle the President’s power away from him.
It’s the old “projection technique” in full view.
That's a tough question. I'll need to think about it.
Should we start calling her Nancy “Sue” Pelosi?
For disobeying the new socialist matriarch? (She's nuts. Seriously.)
I think Pelosi is as coo-coo as a cuckoo bird. I don't think her head is screwed on right. She reminds me of Al Gore. He went totally bozo after losing the election because Clinton couldn't keep his crooked little weeness in his pants.
The entire left wing seems to be doing some kind LSD trip or something.
Modus operandi for the Left: that which you cannot legislate, litigate. (That's "M.O." for those in Rio Linda)
You can, if it is a non-leftist Republican. /s, I think
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..with these actions comes a repeat of:
http://www.JourneyfromtheFall.com
NEVER ever AGAIN..!!!!
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