[IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws, military -- 750 'signing statement'
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 11, 2006 7:22:36 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws,
military -- 750 'signing statement'
Quoting the original Boston Globe article,
| Lack of court review
|
| Such political fallout from Congress is
| likely to be the only check on Bush's
| claims, legal specialists said.
|
| The courts have little chance
| of reviewing Bush's assertions,
| especially in the secret realm of
| national security matters.
|
| ''There can't be judicial review if
| nobody knows about it," said Neil
| Kinkopf, a Georgia State law professor
| who was a Justice Department official
| in the Clinton administration. ''And
| if they avoid judicial review, they
| avoid having their constitutional
| theories rebuked."
|
| Without court involvement, only
| Congress can check a president who goes
| too far. But Bush's fellow Republicans
| control both chambers, and they have
| shown limited interest in launching
| the kind of oversight that could damage
| their party.
|
| ''The president is daring Congress to
| act against his positions, and they're
| not taking action because they don't
| want to appear to be too critical
| of the president, given that their
| own fortunes are tied to his because
| they are all Republicans," said Jack
| Beermann, a Boston University law
| professor. ''Oversight gets much
| reduced in a situation where the
| president and Congress are controlled
| by the same party."
|
| Said Golove, the New York University
| law professor: ''Bush has essentially
| said that 'We're the executive branch
| and we're going to carry this law out
| as we please, and if Congress wants to
| impeach us, go ahead and try it.' "
|
| Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general
| in the Reagan administration, said the
| American system of government relies
| upon the leaders of each branch ''to
| exercise some self-restraint." But Bush
| has declared himself the sole judge
| of his own powers, he said, and then
| ruled for himself every time.
|
| ''This is an attempt by the president
| to have the final word on his
| own constitutional powers, which
| eliminates the checks and balances
| that keep the country a democracy,"
| Fein said. ''There is no way for an
| independent judiciary to check his
| assertions of power, and Congress isn't
| doing it, either. So this is moving us
| toward an unlimited executive power."
--Bob
On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 10:48:38AM -0400, David Farber wrote:
From: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws,
military -- 750 'signing statement'
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 10:48:38 -0400
To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Andrew D. Swart" <andrew@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: May 11, 2006 10:46:51 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, revers@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws,
military -- 750 'signing statement'
Reply-To: andrew@xxxxxxxxx
Ridge,
I agree. I'm glad your note made it to the list. I responded to
Bob's
argument with:
Fair point. However, while we wait for the courts to deal with the
constitutionality of these signing statements, the government has the
opportunity to potentially misbehave, as specified by each signing
statement. This lag between the questionable behavior and any
corrective action -- which could be years -- is inherent in any
complex
system of checks and balances.
I think what makes this president's behavior so troubling to so
many is
the staggering breadth of the potentially unconstitutional behavior
that
is being imposed on Americans (and the rest of the world) as a
result of
these signing statements. To put this into perspective... 750 divided
by 5 years equals 150 signing statements a year, or 3 per week (which
may correspond to the president's average number of working days/week,
if we're to believe reports of this president's fondness for taking
vacations). It seems to me that an average of 3 signing statements
every week is a sign of someone who isn't grappling with an occasional
constitutional conundrum, but someone who simply doesn't feel bound by
the constitution. The unfavorable comparisons with Nixon are not the
result of some liberal conspiracy; they are the result of comparable
behavior and attitudes coming to light.
Andrew Swart
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