Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Signings Away Liberty
Remember those terrific Presidential "signings"? These are the documentated opinions of Presidents to bills that they sign, and are to be used by the courts as a part of interpreting the law. In other words, a way the executive branch can take over the legislative. And as with all things dictatorial, Bush has taken to it like a duck to water.

Fubar at Needlenose makes a terrific catch. Care to guess who was instrumental in developing this little tool for President Reagan?
This is the same Judicial branch that has an opening right now and a candidate currently under consideration who back in 1986 worked for the very same Meese Justice Department and who was the author of a memo titled (.pdf warning): Using Presidential Signing Statement to Make Fuller Use of the President's Constitutionally Assigned Role in the Process of Enacting Law. In the opening paragraph of the memo, Samuel A. Alito Jr. lays out its purpose:
At our last meeting, I was asked to draft a preliminary proposal for implementing the idea of making fuller use of Presidential signing statements. This memorandum is a rough first effort in that direction.

Under the Constitution, a bill becomes law only when passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President (or enacted over his veto). Since the President's approval is just as important as that of the House or Senate, it seems to follow that the President's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress.

Not only did Scalito carry the water for greatly increasing executive authority, but he was willing to do it unconstitutionally.

If this guy makes it on the court, it will take a least a generation to repair the damage.
1 Comments:
Blogger Lynne said...
Oh Jeebus!
Will it even be possible to take the country back sans violent overthrow? When all the laws are stacked to favor a few, the majority have no legal recourse.