Signing Statement Watch - House Panel to probe Bush's record on Signing Statements

[ck4829]

The new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said yesterday that he is launching an aggressive investigation into whether the Bush administration has violated any of the laws it claimed a right to ignore in presidential "signing statements."

Bush has claimed that his executive powers allow him to bypass more than 1,100 laws enacted since he took office. But administration officials insist that Bush's signing statements merely question the laws' constitutionality, and do not necessarily mean that the president also authorized his subordinates to violate them.

Conyers said the president has no power " to ignore duly enacted laws he has negotiated with Congress and signed." And he vowed to find out whether the administration has followed each law it challenged -- including laws touching on classified national security matters, such as the tactics used to interrogate suspected terrorists and the FBI's use of the Patriot Act.

"This is a constitutional issue that no self-respecting federal legislature should tolerate," Conyers said, and he added that the committee was determined to "get to the bottom of this matter, and to be blunt, we are not going to take no for an answer."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/01/house_panel_probing_bushs_record_on_signing_statements/

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. oh goodie. another nonbinding resolution in the works

accomplishing nada.

I am still waiting for the freaking democrats to grow a GD backbone.


Please tell me that I am wrong and that something concrete will come of this.

[hlthe2b]

3. Don't include Conyers in your blanket condemnation...

He has been a voice in the wilderness and put himself out there to do everything possible during the past years of Repug majority.... Now that he is empowered, he is doing everything he said he would, in terms of investigation..

Will he expose what is going on? I strongly believe he will. Will that result in impeachment? That is not solely in Conyer's hands, obviously...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. you are so right. It is the others hiding in the background

that I worry about.

Hell, look at the Senate's craven failure on the issue of the surge.

[radfringe]

2. resident bush supporter this morning

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=98771&mesg_id=98771

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Conyers will go for the jugular

He's been getting prepared for this for years. And he isn't afraid to get all the information gathered and presented so that articles of impeachment can be drafted. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's working on them right now.

[Freeusfromthechurch]

6. I wish he would hurry - IRAN - WW III is coming