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.
IIRC, SCOTUS said that the Jones’ case would not interfere with the POTUS’ duties.
***For the record, I voted for Clinton twice, and thought he should have resigned when Lewinsky came up.
Thank you for the info. It’s been a while.
I'm glad the Hill published this, they are mainstream although somewhat left-leaning.
I hope she trys. It will be fun to watch her rant after she fails BIGTIME!
That was for actions unrelated to his presidential duties. You can’t sue a president for acting as president.
SCOTUS proclaimed that the world at large could pursue a lawsuit against a president only after he left office.
“Personally, I cannot recall a Speaker of the House in my 64 years who has ever been trying to usurp the power of the Presidency like she has. I’d love to see her tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.”
I have two years on you and I agree! Especially would love the run out of town on a rail!! Bur then a three year term and fine for violating the Logan Act would be lovely!
My God what has our country become?
I would like to read that ruling, do you have a link?
Gosh, how I love that Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of these wingnuts ARE the face of the Dim party! You can’t get any stupider than this, AND the bonus is, they’re doing it to themselves without any help from the spineless party! LOL!
Not for very long, anyway.
WILL NONE DARE CALL THIS TREASON???
Touche'`
mark
The mere issuance of a signing statement by a President is not actionable by Congress or anyone else. The President has the freedom to say whatever he wishes about any legislation. And to the extent legislation contemplates the exercise of discretion by the executive agencies in administering the laws (which many do), the President has the right to set administration policy in administering such laws.
Now if the President refuses to enforce legislation that has become a valid law, then Congress has their remedy under the Constitution of impeachment and removal. That was essentially what was attempted against Andrew Johnson, when he failed to follow a law passed by Congress over his veto and which he claimed was unconstitutional (the Sup Ct later agreeing with him).
If Nancy Pelosi wishes to sue President Bush for failing to enforce a law, how about suing him for failing to enforce the laws regarding our border and immigration?
As you probably know, we lost 3,300 Troops during the last four years of Iraq.
Oh my God, it is going to hell in a hand basket, right?
Here is hell in a hand basket:
We averaged a thousand losses a day for twenty one straights days on Iwo Jima.
So, put it into perspective now:
we are in our fourth year in Iraq and the third day on Iwo Jima.
Peloser is taking away the outstanding job our Troops have done in Iraq. I am damn proud of the fine job our Troops have done.
Sure things can be better, but tough times don't last, tough people do.
Peloser is undermining the war and that is treasonous. We should exile her to Iran and shoot her with an ICBM.
May God Bless all of our Troops forever.
There’a always the threat that they will be ignored. They have no enforcement mechanism - except for their bailiff Rusty. Seriously, I want to see Pelosi try this - there’s a lot of post-Vietnam rubbish to be cleared away (e.g., the War Powers Act) and this could be the time to do it.
There’a always the threat that they will be ignored. They have no enforcement mechanism - except for their bailiff Rusty. Seriously, I want to see Pelosi try this - there’s a lot of post-Vietnam rubbish to be cleared away (e.g., the War Powers Act) and this could be the time to do it.
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