I always thought the POTUS electronically signed legislation when he was abroad

You sign some type of electronic pad and it goes onto the legislation. This needs to happen in the future. The technology is already available.

Once used it's a precedent. That it temporally decouples the act of approving from the actual signing allows for some weirdness.


I can imagine the following:

President is sick, near death. Important legislation is passed and he tells his subordinate to use the autopen to sign.

He dies a minute later.

Would the use of the autopen posthumously be acceptable? What if the subordinate didn't actually have the legislation signed--would that be a perversion of presidential authority? Or what if the president *didn't* authorize its use, but a subordinate used it anyway?

Or what if a president says he'll sign something after it's approved but he dies on the way to the WH to do the signing. The claim is that the signature is just a consequence of the mental and verbal permission. In this case, would the use of the autopen be permitted? What if he changes his mind after making the announcement--is his verbal approval irrevocable?

What if he announces that he'll sign and authorizes the use of the autopen. Before the subordinate can employ it, the president changes his mind--but since he's abroad, he can't reach the subordinate in the 5 minutes before he actually uses it. Permission was given; it was revoked; then the signature was affixed.

So much easier when there's a tenth of a second and 3 feet between assent and signing instead of an hour and 3000 miles.

days before signing any legislation?