Inadvertant pocket veto?
Nov. 3rd, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI saw some things on this last week.
The President had a couple of bills come to his desk, bills he had made a big deal of needing to have passed. The one, allows him to federalise the National Guard, by fiat.
His signing statement, as to be expected, shows a callous disregard for the actual law.
"A number of provisions in the Act call for the executive branch to furnish information to the Congress or other entities on various subjects. These provisions include sections 219, 313, 360, 1211, 1212, 1213, 1227, 1402, and 3116 of the Act, section 427 of title 10, United States Code, as amended by section 932 of the Act, and section 1093 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (Public Law 108-375) as amended by section 1061 of the Act. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."
There are three other paragrpahs, which start, "The executive branch shall construe as advisory section ... of the Act, which purports..."
Here is the complete text of one of those paragraphs.
The executive branch shall construe sections 914 and 1512 of the Act, which purport to make consultation with specified Members of Congress a precondition to the execution of the law, as calling for but not mandating such consultation, as is consistent with the Constitution's provisions concerning the separate powers of the Congress to legislate and the President to execute the laws.
WTF... Congres purports to make real, you know, laws, pursuant to the powers assigned to them. But the arrogance which has been evident in his treatment of the laws he refuses to actually veto has been a recurrent theme.
Congress purports.
It was sent to him on 5 Oct.. 2006.
The other bill has gotten more press.
H.R. 6166, the Military Commissions Act.
People are saying that, as they were passed on X date, and signed more than 10 days later (even excluding Sundays, as the Constitution requires).
I've seen people discussing all sorts of arcana, what counts as a recess (I think the month and a half taken for the elections should count) and what the courts will do. But they all seem to have missed the important part. Looking at the Constitution, Art. 2 Sec. 7:
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, ... If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law
And we see the ten days, but we also see, the clock starts on the day he gets it, not the day it gets passed by the Houses of Congress.
So the chance to get it ruled gone, on procedural grounds, is a non-starter.
The President had a couple of bills come to his desk, bills he had made a big deal of needing to have passed. The one, allows him to federalise the National Guard, by fiat.
His signing statement, as to be expected, shows a callous disregard for the actual law.
"A number of provisions in the Act call for the executive branch to furnish information to the Congress or other entities on various subjects. These provisions include sections 219, 313, 360, 1211, 1212, 1213, 1227, 1402, and 3116 of the Act, section 427 of title 10, United States Code, as amended by section 932 of the Act, and section 1093 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (Public Law 108-375) as amended by section 1061 of the Act. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."
There are three other paragrpahs, which start, "The executive branch shall construe as advisory section ... of the Act, which purports..."
Here is the complete text of one of those paragraphs.
The executive branch shall construe sections 914 and 1512 of the Act, which purport to make consultation with specified Members of Congress a precondition to the execution of the law, as calling for but not mandating such consultation, as is consistent with the Constitution's provisions concerning the separate powers of the Congress to legislate and the President to execute the laws.
WTF... Congres purports to make real, you know, laws, pursuant to the powers assigned to them. But the arrogance which has been evident in his treatment of the laws he refuses to actually veto has been a recurrent theme.
Congress purports.
It was sent to him on 5 Oct.. 2006.
The other bill has gotten more press.
H.R. 6166, the Military Commissions Act.
People are saying that, as they were passed on X date, and signed more than 10 days later (even excluding Sundays, as the Constitution requires).
I've seen people discussing all sorts of arcana, what counts as a recess (I think the month and a half taken for the elections should count) and what the courts will do. But they all seem to have missed the important part. Looking at the Constitution, Art. 2 Sec. 7:
Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, ... If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law
And we see the ten days, but we also see, the clock starts on the day he gets it, not the day it gets passed by the Houses of Congress.
So the chance to get it ruled gone, on procedural grounds, is a non-starter.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-04 03:56 am (UTC)But "Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, [...]" seems to me to be simple, direct, and unambiguous in offering only two choices. I do wonder, though, if these "signing statements" can be used by, or are binding upon, future Presidents, and if Presidents can, retroactively, officially refuse to enforce or be be bound by all or parts of older "laws" enacted by Congress, now that "law" has come to be accepted as meaning merely "guideline".
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 12:54 pm (UTC)However it is unfortunate that the National Guard federalization bill has received so little attention, presumably because the Military Commissions Act has absorbed all the judiciary oxygen in the room. Not a word even on Balkinization, Concurring Opinions or Lawyers, Guns and Money.