This via Len Hart at Existentialist Cowboy: According to the Boston Globe, Dubya has used the "signing statement" ploy to once more write out of existence the oversight requirements overwhelmingly passed by Congress in its reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act last month.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it 'a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people.' But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a 'signing statement,' an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would 'impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties.'
He then includes the same language used in his signing statement overriding the McCain anti-torture law, invoking his "constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch." In plain language, he will decide when to comply with the law and when not to comply. And this time, what the White House euphemistically calls "very standard language" could be used to deny Congress any possibility of oversight.
Yet, we've heard barely a whimper from Congress about this. Can't they recognize a constitutional crisis when they see one?
Len Hart does. And he's been calling for unprecedented action -- a national recall movement. While I question the constitutionality of a national recall (the Constitution is silent on the subject and supposedly provides only impeachment as a remedy), he raises an important question -- is it time for drastic measures?
I believe it is. Before our own Revolution (it's hard to remember now, but we did have one), many of the leading figures in that struggle exchanged a long series of "letters of correspondence". It was basically a written conversation about law, the people's rights, and the king's abuse of those rights. Today, that conversation is taking place in the liberal blogosphere, and it must take place. We may disagree on different approaches or solutions, but we all agree on one thing: The present dismantling of two hundred years of constitutional law cannot stand.
So what can we do? The Supreme Court has already indicated that an individual Congressmember, or a group of Congressmembers, have no standing to sue the President of the United States. However, the facts in Raines v. Byrd (1997) are clearly distinguishable. There, a group of representatives who voted against the Line Item Veto Act brought suit against the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Treasury Secretary challenging the Act's unconstitutionality, claiming an "institutional injury."
The Court did not grant standing to sue in that case but did say:
Our holding in Coleman stands (at most. . .) for the proposition that legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to...enact a specific legislative act have standing to sue if that legislative action...does not go into effect...on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified. (Emphasis added.)
Both the Anti-Torture Act and the Patriot Act were overwhelmingly passed by both houses of Congress. The intent of both acts is crystal clear. But Bush explicitly states that the Constitution gives him a right to ignore key provisions of the law at his own choosing. If so, then simply passing another law is meaningless, since he will just issue another signing statment, and so on into infinity. If this is not vote nullification, then what is?
The Supreme Court has said that an individual member of Congress can sue, can claim a personal injury, when his or her vote is, in effect, given no effect. Of course, the ultimate remedy for all this is impeachment and, before that, we need to elect a Democratic Congress. But I'd much rather see Feingold abandon his rather meaningless censure motion and sue the President of the United States in District Court. Watergate played out largely in the courts long before Congress stepped in. The courts have subpoena power and they'll use it. And one favorable ruling might provide cover to on-the-fence Reeps who would be open to a Congressional hearing.
So let's sue the S.O.B. It's time to bring this crisis to a head.