Specter wants to sue Dubya

[EweTupper]

Specter prepping bill to sue Bush By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 13 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

"That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers."

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter's committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.

Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.

But many of Bush's signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security.

Still, the White House said signing statements are not intended to allow the administration to ignore the law.

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It never says, 'We're not going to enact the law.'"

Specter's announcement intensifies his challenge of the administration's use of executive power on a number of policy matters. Of particular interest to him are two signing statements challenging the provisions of the USA Patriot Act renewal, which he wrote, and legislation banning the use of torture on detainees.

Bush is not without congressional allies on the matter. Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, a former judge, has said that signing statements are nothing more than expressions of presidential opinion that carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060724/...NlYwNtdm5ld3M-
Sounds like a good idea. I'm curious to hear a better argument in the President's favor. That last paragraph is a joke. If the Presidential opinions are disregarded by federal courts, then maybe they shouldn't be included in the first place.

[Griffin 4]

If Presidential opinions are disregarded by federal courts anyway, then what's accomplished by having a lawsuit to remove them?

[EweTupper]

President attaches opinion saying the agencies enacting the law must interpret law in a certain way. Agency follows Presidential order, lawsuit ensues, and court finds that President's opinion was an unconstitutional misinterpretation of Congress' bill, and agency must change how they are acting. Such uncertainty is not good for the country, socially or economically.

[Pseudolus]

This is the most sensible thing I've read on signing statements:

Originally Posted by Ramesh Ponnuru

First, consider signing statements as attempts to influence the judicial interpretation of laws. If you consider both legislative histories and presidential statements as guides to the courts in their search for a law's meaning, there is a rough parity. The legislative history provides evidence about what legislators thought they were voting for, and the signing statements provide evidence about what presidents thought they were letting become law. Now it may be that courts shouldn't pay much attention to either type of evidence. But I just don't see how signing statements are more nefarious than legislative histories.

Second, signing statements may also express a kind of presidential order to his subordinates about how a law should be interpreted. Again, this doesn't strike me as bad in principle, since executive agents will usually need to make some decision about how to apply a law before any adjudication takes place.

Third, a signing statement may express a president's view that a law can be interpreted in more than one way, and that he chooses to interpret it in the way that accords best with (his sense of) the Constitution. His interpretation of the statute or the Constitution in a particular signing statement may be wrong or even far-fetched, but if so the problem is more the incorrectness of the interpretation than its encasement in a signing statement. Also, as much as possible, the president should work with Congress to clear up any ambiguities beforehand.

Fourth, a signing statement may express a president's belief that parts of the law he is signing are unconstitutional and his desire that his subordinates ignore those portions of the law. This strikes me as a trickier question. In general, if a president thinks that a bill violates the Constitution, he ought to veto it (as Glenn Reynolds writes). I am quite open to the possibility that the president has used signing statements in this way too often. He probably has, just as he hasn't vetoed enough legislation. I just don't think that this misuse of signing statements renders signing statements a bad idea in general. I don't think Sam Alito, in endorsing signing statements in the 1980s, should be taken to have endorsed this use of them; nor do I think that anyone who thinks that courts should consider these statements as they seek to determine the meaning of a law should be taken to have endorsed this use of them.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...I4YmYwZGQxMzE=

[The President]

Originally Posted by Griffin 4

If Presidential opinions are disregarded by federal courts anyway, then what's accomplished by having a lawsuit to remove them?

Why do you think Bush has only vetoed one bill? The rest which he does not like he simply interprets them however he wants...like the anti-torture bll.

[The President]

Originally Posted by Pseudolus

This is the most sensible thing I've read on signing statements:http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...I4YmYwZGQxMzE=

Bush has an MBA, it troubles me that he seems to know the consitution better than the collection of senators and reps, many of whom are lawyers and experts of the constitution.

[Pseudolus]

That is troubling. What are they teaching in legislatorial college these days, anyway?

[Griffin 4]

Originally Posted by EweTupper

President attaches opinion saying the agencies enacting the law must interpret law in a certain way. Agency follows Presidential order, lawsuit ensues, and court finds that President's opinion was an unconstitutional misinterpretation of Congress' bill, and agency must change how they are acting. Such uncertainty is not good for the country, socially or economically.

So he signs the bill, doesn't attach a statement, and tells the agencies to interpret it that way anyway.

[EweTupper]

Originally Posted by Griffin 4

So he signs the bill, doesn't attach a statement, and tells the agencies to interpret it that way anyway.

Yep, that would be just as bad.

[Griffin 4]

Originally Posted by The President

Bush has an MBA, it troubles me that he seems to know the consitution better than the collection of senators and reps, many of whom are lawyers and experts of the constitution.

That's why we have a third branch - what's that called again?