Bush power grab is BS - and the Supreme Court says so again in...

INS v. Chadha et al.

Specifically:

"a) The prescription for legislative action in Art. I, 1 - requiring all legislative powers to be vested in a Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives - and 7 - requiring every bill passed by the House and Senate, before becoming law, to be presented to the President, and, if he disapproves, to be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House - represents the Framers' decision that the legislative power of the Federal Government be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered procedure. This procedure is an integral part of the constitutional design for the separation of powers. Pp. 944-951.

(b) Here, the action taken by the House pursuant to 244(c)(2) was essentially legislative in purpose and effect and thus was subject to the procedural requirements of Art. I, 7, for legislative action: passage by a majority of both Houses and presentation to the President. The one-House veto operated to overrule the Attorney General and mandate Chadha's deportation. The veto's legislative character is confirmed by the character of the congressional action it supplants; i. e., absent the veto provision of 244(c)(2), neither the House nor the Senate, or both acting together, could effectively require the Attorney General to deport an alien once the Attorney General, in the exercise of legislatively <462 U.S. 919, 922> delegated authority, had determined that the alien should remain in the United States. Without the veto provision, this could have been achieved only by legislation requiring deportation. A veto by one House under 244(c)(2) cannot be justified as an attempt at amending the standards set out in 244(a)(1), or as a repeal of 244 as applied to Chadha. The nature of the decision implemented by the one-House veto further manifests its legislative character. Congress must abide by its delegation of authority to the Attorney General until that delegation is legislatively altered or revoked. Finally, the veto's legislative character is confirmed by the fact that when the Framers intended to authorize either House of Congress to act alone and outside of its prescribed bicameral legislative role, they narrowly and precisely defined the procedure for such action in the Constitution. Pp. 951-959. "

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=462&page=919

This clearly states that the Constitutional legislative procedures MUST be followed - and it's not optional on the whims of the President because he wants the law to say something else and writes that something else in a signing statement! If the President doesn't like what the law says, constitutionally he must go back to the Congress to change the law and follow the Constitutional legislative procedure to enact it. If he doesn't, his actions are unconstitutional. How does THAT square with his oath to uphold the constitution?

I commend you sir or madam, as the case may be.:yourock:

IIRC, actions required under executive orders must be within the law, and are limited to actions taken by the Executive Branch.

...challenged in the courts. However, there have been some efforts in Congress to limit them. An example:

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju63865.000/hju63865_0.htm

In Youngstown v. Sawyer, the Supreme Court ruled Executive Orders unconstitutional unless they "have either direct statutory or constitutional authority."

Youngstown v. Sawyer

For an interesting Slate article on the Constitutionality of Executive Orders: http://www.slate.com/?id=2058854

My take on this is many of the Executive Orders that have been issued would not hold up in court as constitutional if challenged.

You remember the executive orders calling for suspending the Constitution and giving FEMA power to do everything. They have appeared here more than once and I have never seen anything that discredits their existance.

It seems to me that they are an impeachable offense right there for ordering to suspend the Constitution "if."

...bunch of lying 'pukes, then any unconstitutional executive order would be voided by the courts, including those suspending the constitution (since the constitution is the supreme law of the land, no other law can usurp it, including an executive order). This does depend on a Supreme Court that is not corrupt, however.

...the Supreme Court hate America?

this pretty well lays out why Bush/Gonzolas are full of male bovine fecal excrement...good read...

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2005/12/not-authorized-by-law-domestic-spying.php

Not Authorized By Law: Domestic Spying and Congressional Consent

JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that contrary to assertions by President Bush and the US Department of Justice, post-9/11 Congressional legislation on the use of military force against terrorists does not authorize domestic spying...


George W. Bush and US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claim that domestic spying in manifest violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was authorized by Congress in broad language in the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) regarding persons responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Similar claims have been made in a December 22 letter from Assistant Attorney General William Moschella to the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The claims are patently false.

First, there is no persuasive evidence that when passing the AUMF Congress intended to override either criminal or other . Second, the AUMF contains no express or implied authorization concerning intelligence surveillance either abroad or within the United States. With respect to Executive action against certain persons, the purpose of the AUMF is clearly contained in the authorization to use merely “necessary and appropriate force” against those “nations, organizations, or persons” that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 terrorist attacks as such or that “harbored such ... persons.” The authorization of appropriate “force” is not an authorization to torture or to use cruel, inhuman, degrading, or humiliating treatment against any human being; it is not an authorization to create military commissions that are otherwise without jurisdiction under constitutional and international law and violate due process; and it is certainly not an authorization to spy on persons within the United States. Moreover, Congress has only authorized use of “appropriate” force. The word “appropriate” creates a statutory limitation that necessarily requires Executive compliance with relevant constitutional, international, and other federal laws, especially since Supreme Court opinions have long recognized that relevant international law and prior federal statutes are a necessary background more generally for interpretation of newer federal statutes.

Indeed, under Article II, Section 3 of our Constitution the President has an express and unavoidable duty to faithfully execute the “Laws” and has no power to violate them. As Richard Nixon learned, presidential authorizations to violate the law are, in the words of the House Judiciary Committee, “subversive of constitutional government.” Additionally, since 1800 Supreme Court opinions have recognized the power of Congress to limit certain Commander in Chief powers during actual war (see, e.g., 43 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 811, 842 n.114 (2005)), such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the Commander in Chief power does not apply outside of an actual war and the United States cannot be at “war” with al Qaeda as such (see, e.g., 28 Yale J. Int’l L. 325, 326-28 (2003)). In his letter Assistant Attorney General Moschella seriously misread the Prize Cases (1863) by ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court expressly referred to two early federal statutes that “authorized ... bound” the President, demonstrating another instance of congressional power to regulate portions of the Commander-in-Chief power even during actual war. Moreover, any so-called inherent presidential authority to spy on Americans at home (perhaps of the kind denounced in Youngstown (1952) and which no strict constructionist should pretend to recognize), has been clearly limited in the FISA in 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f) and 50 U.S.C. § 1809(a)(1), as supplemented by the criminal provisions in 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1).