| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Obama issues "signing statement" rejecting budget cuts to White House "czars" |
| 2011-04-16 |
| You didn't seriously think he was going to abide by the will of Congress, did you? Such is The One's personal awesomeness that he can order the bombing of Libya without so much as a heads up to the legislature in advance. Surely he wasn't about to be tripped up by a duly enacted bill that dares to cut off the money he uses for his auxiliary cabinet. I have to say, of all the Bush policies recycled by Obama, this one's my favorite just because it's such a gratuitous offense to his base. You can spin many of the others on expediency grounds -- he had to ramp up the drone strikes in Pakistan to crack down on terrorists, he had to keep Gitmo military tribunals going because the Republicans tied his hands -- but this one's pretty much a pure no-apologies betrayal. The bad news: Legally, it's highly dubious. The good news: It should provoke another classic what-happened-to-the-Barack-I-knew Andrew Sullivan lament. One rider -- Section 2262 -- de-funds certain White House adviser positions -- or "czars." The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it. "The President has well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch, and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority," he wrote. "The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it. Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President's ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President's ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed."... In other words: we know what you wanted that provision to do, but we don't think it's constitutional, so we will interpret it differently than the way you meant it. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #3 Oddly enough, I do not believe it is presidentially impeachable, for the reason that it has been coming on since Marbury v. Madison (1810), when the SCOTUS ordered the POTUS to comply, and he refused. Even from the founding of the republic, there were concerns about an "imperial presidency". It is a broader issue than can be dealt with by just impeachment. However, that being said, though it has only been done once (William W. Belknap (Secretary of War)), cabinet officers can be impeached. And while the assumption *was* that this only applied to senate approved cabinet officers; since the president has sought to evade this advice and consent, there is no reason to think that congress cannot impeach Czars. The House has initiated impeachment proceedings, mostly against federal judges, some 64 times. Easy because it requires just a simple majority vote. The hard part is conviction by the Senate, as it needs a 2/3rds majority vote, or 67 senators in agreement. Even if the Republican won the Senate vote big time in 2012, the best estimates are that it could only get 60 senators. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-04-16 15:52 |
| #2 Impeach Obama, 2011. If Congress doesn't, they will become totally impotent, and we will be ruled by a dictator. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2011-04-16 13:03 |
| #1 The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities.. While it is true, it also doesn't imply 'paid' advice. Many Presidents have had advisers that were not on the payrolls, often referred to as the 'kitchen cabinet'. The purse strings, however, are always those of the legislative branch. If they say no pay, then constitutionally, it's no pay. That's the basis for cutting off operations of the military or any other department. It also becomes the basis for removal from office if ignored. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-04-16 10:04 |