more on President claims supreme power over laws, military -- 750 'signing statement'

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
Date: May 11, 2006 7:22:36 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
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 () farber net>
> 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 () v2 listbox com
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Andrew D. Swart" <andrew () swart com>
> Date: May 11, 2006 10:46:51 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net, revers () evers org
> Subject: RE: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws,
> military -- 750 'signing statement'
> Reply-To: andrew () swart com
>
> 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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