That is exactly what Bush should tell Peloser too.
NUTS!!
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.
I have, sweetie, that’s were I go the information.
These people are idiots. I cannot imagine trying to work with them day in and day out. President Bush is probably counting the hours and days until he can get the hell out of there.
Grandma Pelosi is nuts!
Now we chase punks who hide behind woman and children.
At Antietam, something like 12,000 Yankees and 10,000 rebels were casualties in four hours, not four years.
Our Troops have done a stellar job in Iraq. Things could be a heck of a lot worse. I firmly believe Peloser would just love it if things were as bad as she would like us believe.
I is not just Peloser too. Our media is a shame. A cryin shame.
Where is the media out cry? Where is the Demoratic out cry? You would think they would have a time line for US withdraw from the US already?
OK, if you’re not going to share your links, please don’t waste our time.
I have been saying until I turn blue in the face that the game the DEMS have in mind is to shift power from the Executive Branch to the Judiciary in a big way because they have a cadre of loyal appointees from the Clintoon years. I firmly believe that the Clintoon strategy is to throw the 2008 election to the courts. Pee-lousy’s caper is just another warm-up run.
Then prove me wrong, via whatever “link” you have or please state “case law” that refutes what I have said. Or don’t waste my time.
That is exactly what Bush should tell Peloser too.
NUTS!!
Time is on Bush' side. He has less than two years to go. Justice (the court system) moves very slowly. An impeachment gives them Cheney. The dims are screwed. It's much like Clinton's last years. He stymied the Republican Congress every step of the way.
LOL!
I am not going to play with you anymore!
I believe the whole Democrat party is suffering from some form of insanity.
I wonder if any of them have given any thought whatsoever to what will happen if we run out of Iraq. Do they even care? Even if they get elected someone will have to clean up the mess. If they leave Iraq will their next move be to cut troop strength?
This action is the last refuge of a coward.
Thank you!
I tell ya, if THIS doesn’t wake up those who don’t understand the dangers and ramifications of another Democrat in the White House, I don’t know what is.
Four of the Justices would tell her to go $hit in her hat....the other five - I'm not so sure.
I have better things to do with my time than enter a pissing contest with someone that is not familiar with Constitutional Law.
Further proof that all her plastic surgery has lifted her bung hole where her mouth should be.
I asked for a link to the SCOTUS ruling that you referred to. Can you provide one?
Court? The president should arrest this traitor and clamp her in irons. What would Lincoln do?
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