No line-item veto
DB went to bed last night thinking that the last post wasn't clear enough, so here is the point in a nutshell:
In the case of the signing statement regarding the opening of Americans' mail, Attorney General Gonzales claimed no Constitutional conflict. Not only did he claim the department never did an "analysis" of the president's Constitutional authority in this realm (a dubious claim, indeed), but he defended the statement by embracing other limits on the president's authority ("to preserve the authority we believe exists under FISA, under other statutes.")
So where does he get off claiming the power to accept certain grants of authority from Congress, but not further definitions of that same authority? Bush's only legitimate course of action would be to veto the entire bill. Instead, he's pretending that he has a line-item veto and instructing his subordinates to violate the law by ignoring specific parts of it.
In the case of the signing statement regarding the opening of Americans' mail, Attorney General Gonzales claimed no Constitutional conflict. Not only did he claim the department never did an "analysis" of the president's Constitutional authority in this realm (a dubious claim, indeed), but he defended the statement by embracing other limits on the president's authority ("to preserve the authority we believe exists under FISA, under other statutes.")
So where does he get off claiming the power to accept certain grants of authority from Congress, but not further definitions of that same authority? Bush's only legitimate course of action would be to veto the entire bill. Instead, he's pretending that he has a line-item veto and instructing his subordinates to violate the law by ignoring specific parts of it.
Labels: Gonzales, unitary executive
