Posted on 03/25/2002 11:16:37 AM PST by Pay now bill Clinton
Bush Will Sign Campaign Finance Bill
Mon Mar 25,10:19 AM ET
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) said on Sunday he would sign landmark campaign finance reform legislation with only a slight hesitation, reflecting his ongoing concerns about the measure.
The legislation to reduce the influence of money in politics won final congressional approval last week, and Bush has pledged to sign it soon.
The bill would ban unlimited contributions known as "soft money" to national political parties, limit such donations to state and local parties and restrict broadcast ads by outside groups shortly before elections.
Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation of Bill Clinton's sex life resulted in the president's impeachment in 1998, is to lead a legal challenge that will seek to knock down most of the measure as unconstitutional.
Bush said he felt the campaign bill did not fully address the need to require identification of who is funding so-called independent groups that introduce "scurrilous, untrue" television advertisements in the last days of a campaign, as he said happened to him in his 2000 presidential campaign.
"I've always thought that people who pump money into the political system, we ought to know who they are," he said.
Bush said that nonetheless the "bill is a better bill than the current system," but that some parts of it might not stand up to a court challenge.
If you toss out the Constitution all we have left is "smart politics"
Then our Right's are as ambiguous as the term "smart politics"
And when that happens, what hope do we have left?
I want the president and the congress to do what they swore an oath to do.
That's true, no argument from me. That's the way the Constitution constituted the enactment of laws.
Let's say he vetoes the CFR. The Dumbs will beat the Republicans over the head mercilessly with the veto in the November election. And McCain will be right back at it in the next session. Nothing, absolutely nothing will keep McCain from trying to do Bush in.
Let's say the Supremes knock it out? It's gone, man, gone.
I think Bush is trying his best to lay the groundwork for working majorities in the House and Senate in the next election. He's going to need that to get any of his judicial appointments approved.
Laws can always be protested, changed, over ruled etc. Citizens murdered by terrorists can never be brought back from the dead.Ahh, I think I see a resurection of the good old "Better Red That Dead"
If the oath to uphold the constitution means nothing to Congress and the President then they can draft similar legislation till the end of time.
There is no gurantee that this is the end of CFR like bills. None.
And, if anything the knowledge that the President will sign it and the media will fawn over them is an incentive for Congress to try again.
If you toss out the Constitution all we have left is "smart politics"
Then our Right's are as ambiguous as the term "smart politics"
And when that happens, what hope do we have left?
A lot better hope that if we lose the battle of the political jungle and Hillary, Kerry, or Lieberman takes the throne.
Dane:
If the GWB domestic policy to date is "smart politics" it is an indicator that the President and his advisors must truly be convinced that conservative principles will never resonate with the American public.
And if that's true, I can't find a really good reason for conservatives to support him.
First, thanks to Michiganer for posting the history of George Washington's first use of the veto -- and on constitutional grounds. I hadn't read that document before.
Second, thanks to Uncle Fud for introducing some common sense to the discussion. The veto power found in Article I, Section 7, does not require any particular kind of reason for a Presidential veto. It may be constitutional, as was Washington's in 1792, it may be simply disagreement with the politics of the bill.
The President IS, however, expected to state his "objections" in returning the bill to the House from which it originated. There is no requirement that the stated oobjections are the ones he really has in mind.
Executive vetoes were well known, prior to the writing of the Constitution. All of the Royal Governors of the Colonies had absolute veto power. When they rejected a bill, there was no provision for an override. As the states wrote constitutions for themselves, many provided for vetos in their Presidents (or Governors) but allowed for an override.
The first national government under the Articles of Confederation had a weak and largely eremonial "President." He was elected by Congress for a one-year term and had no veto. An example of how little the office meant then is that John Hancock was too ill to travel, and never went to the Capitol during his year as "President."
When the Constitutional Convention gave the President a veto subject to an override, they included the requirement that he state his "objections." This was simply common sense. If Congress was going to reconsider the bill, it should know why the President vetoed it in the first place.
As for your question, Howlin, whether Congress' passing a law over a Presidential veto then makes it "constitutional," the answer is no. As others have stated on this thread, the Supreme Court has the FINAL determination on whether any bill -- or other action of the government -- is constitutional.
However, long before that point, it is clear that any Representative, any Senator, any President can refuse to support any bill for any reason, including the reason that he or she thinks the bill is unconstitutional.
Applying that general theory to the facts at hand, CFR is so blatantly unconstitutional that no self-respecting Representative, Senator or President should have supported it in its present form. Driven by press acounts of Enron and Global Crossing (and their lavish financial buttering of both sides of the aisle), the lot of them stampeded and passed a bad bill.
Now the last defense of the First Amendment will be in the Supreme Court, probably before November. I'll be there. We will beat this monster. And then, though not before then, the folks on FreeRepublic who care about the Constitution can breath a sigh of relief.
The two links below deal with different aspects of this situation.
Congressman Billybob
Click here to fight Shays-Meehan.
Click here for latest column: "Does Anybody READ the Constitution?"
I think he should veto it.....but I'm not going to commit suicide if he does because I don't know whether he has the authority to or not, unless he is SURE, and I do not know how he could be unless it goes in front of the USSC.
I'm not going to commit suicide either.
But, the deal is, he's the President.
He doesn't have to SURE.
If he exercises his veto power based on his OPINION that the 30/60 day portion of this bill is unconstitutional and sends it back to the House, it would appear from the previous votes, that the Legislative branch wouldn't be able to override.
It then puts the onus on them to remove that portion from the bill.
Will they fall on their swords to keep that portion?
Well, I don't see how further damage to our Constitution plays into that.. But it's obvious that I am going to have to dissagree with you and Howlin.
I would like for you to think about this however. Gambling with our right's can be dangerous.
There is no requirement that the stated oobjections are the ones he really has in mind.
Are you suggesting that politics might come into it?
If the GWB domestic policy to date is "smart politics" it is an indicator that the President and his advisors must truly be convinced that conservative principles will never resonate with the American public.
And if that's true, I can't find a really good reason for conservatives to support him
Huh I guess a tax cut is not good then. Or calling a fetus and unborn child. Or getting rid of the Kyoto treaty.
Oh well go ahead and click your ruby slippers and wish for your perfect world.
Unlike the movies that doesn't mean it is going to happen.
BTW, I have heard over and over that the votes ARE there to override it. They want to be able to say that they TRIED, and couldn't care less what position they have put Bush in.
I believe that if the policies of the national Democratic party continue unchecked that within fifty years our government will collapse, just as the French monarchy did in the 1780's and the Soviet regime did in the 1980's, from the sheer weight of taxation and regulation.
If the policies of the national Republican party, as expressed not in platforms but in laws enacted, prevail, we will still have that collapse but perhaps within a hundred years rather than fifty.
In the long view there is little difference.
Excellent excellent point. A political veteran like Karl Rove would know this and act accordingly. So the only assumption to make would be that they think they can shore up enough support in the blue zones to make up the difference in '04. GWB seems to be governing further from the left - domestically speaking - than Clinton did, so maybe they actually believe this will work.
But, I don't hear you calling for a veto.
It will be the law regardless. The Supreme Court may be called
upon to decide the constitutionality of that law, and their
decision now becomes the law, until another Supreme Court
rules differently. Or congress writes another law, or amends the
constitution.
Why is this so hard for you to grasp? You must think everyone
who questions anything Bush does is a Bush hater, then blindly
go into attack(carville) mode. I support Bush always have, but
he is dead wrong on this issue, in my opinion. And I am entitled
to say so, unless someone sneaked in an amendment while
we wern't looking.
And gambling with one's vote over the micro-machinations of the overall political picture is just as or even more dangerous.
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