Saturday, April 29, 2006
Legal Issues Mount Against White House
This post will deal with two legal developments.
First, three state legislatures, Illinois, California, and Vermont, have now introduced resolutions to send petitions to the U.S. House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush (and, in the case of California, Cheney too).
Second, several members of the House are joining a number of watchdog groups in filing a lawsuit against the administration. It seems that President Bush and Congressional Republicans have forgotten that we have a system that requires both houses of Congress to pass a bill (in this case, the budget) before the President signs it. If they didn't forget it, then they simply ignored it.
As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan said, "the House and Senate passed different versions of [the budget]. House Republicans did not want to make Republicans in marginal districts vote on the bill again, so they simply certified that the Senate bill was the same as the House bill and sent it to the President. The President, despite warnings that the bill did not represent the consensus of the House and Senate, simply shrugged and signed the bill anyway. Now, the Administration is implementing it as though it was the law of the land.
Conyers goes on to say that by doing what they did, the Republican leadership deprived House members of their constitutional right and duty to vote on a revised version of the budget. That gives House members grounds for the lawsuit.
Stay tuned.
First, three state legislatures, Illinois, California, and Vermont, have now introduced resolutions to send petitions to the U.S. House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush (and, in the case of California, Cheney too).
Second, several members of the House are joining a number of watchdog groups in filing a lawsuit against the administration. It seems that President Bush and Congressional Republicans have forgotten that we have a system that requires both houses of Congress to pass a bill (in this case, the budget) before the President signs it. If they didn't forget it, then they simply ignored it.
As Congressman John Conyers of Michigan said, "the House and Senate passed different versions of [the budget]. House Republicans did not want to make Republicans in marginal districts vote on the bill again, so they simply certified that the Senate bill was the same as the House bill and sent it to the President. The President, despite warnings that the bill did not represent the consensus of the House and Senate, simply shrugged and signed the bill anyway. Now, the Administration is implementing it as though it was the law of the land.
Conyers goes on to say that by doing what they did, the Republican leadership deprived House members of their constitutional right and duty to vote on a revised version of the budget. That gives House members grounds for the lawsuit.
Stay tuned.
