Veto by Obama raises questions

The Washington Times ^ | January 12, 2010 | David R. Sands

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The first veto of the Obama presidency was not supposed to be a big deal, but President Obama's rejection of an obscure spending bill late last month is raising some unexpected constitutional questions.

Mr. Obama's use of both a "pocket veto" and a regular veto on a stopgap spending bill approved by Congress Dec. 19 has at least one leading scholar questioning the move as a possible stealth White House power grab.

The Constitution "simply doesn't give the president a multiple-choice option" on how to veto a bill, said Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at State University of New York at Cortland and author of a noted book on the presidential veto.

The method used by Mr. Obama, Mr. Spitzer noted, has been a source of tension between the White House and Congress dating back to the Ford administration.

The White House Office of Management and Budget said Monday that Mr. Obama's veto was "technical action intended to prevent the enactment of the stopgap funding measure that proved unnecessary."

An OMB official, speaking on background, said that practical considerations, not executive power plays, dictated Mr. Obama's veto process. The stopgap bill and the defense spending bill, for example, contained different expiration dates for certain federal programs and allowing both to proceed could have produced "real legal uncertainty," the official said.

The official said Mr. Obama was following precedents set by his three predecessors dating back three decades in issuing the pocket veto and the regular veto, while acknowledging that legal and constitutional questions surrounding the process were still "unresolved."

"Ultimately, if we ever reach the point of a disagreement, it would have to be resolved by the courts," the official said.

[NorwegianViking]

Obama wants to grab as much power as he can and do it any way that he can. Having studied Constitutional Law he is quite prepared to use all the deception devices he can devise. I hope it does end up in the courts, at least that way more people will be made aware of his insidious trickery.

[PubliusMM]

“Ultimately, if we ever reach the point of a disagreement, it would have to be resolved by the courts,”

I’m fine with that. Let’s go...

[doc1019]

Let Obama make all the power grabs he can, we can’t do anything about it anyway. If we survive, Sara can use them to put the country back together again in 2012.

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[eeriegeno]

Let Obama make all the power grabs he can, we can’t do anything about it anyway. If we survive, Sara can use them to put the country back together again in 2012.

If we get to 2012!!!!

[Brilliant]

I don’t see how it could be unconstitutional. The pocket veto has been around for a long time. And besides, it’s just a formality. If there was no pocket veto, he would likely just sign a veto.

[WAW]

“Ultimately, if we ever reach the point of a disagreement, it would have to be resolved by the courts,”

Ultimately the last argument of tyrants is force.