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Will Baude asks why President Bush asked for Congress to pass the line-item veto in last night State of the Union address. He advances six semi-plausible explanations for why Bush would have done so.
Let me propose a seventh (and far simpler) explanation: Bush wants Congress to pass a constitutional amendment that provides for the line-item veto. Yes, it is relatively unlikely to happen, but then again I don’t see the Supreme Court flip-flopping on Clinton v. New York (or letting Congress get away with weaseling around it) as any more likely.
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3 comments:
IMHO, Occam’s Razor requires a working hypothesis along the lines of Baude’s semi-plausible explanations 5 and 6: I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bush isn’t aware of the ruling in Clinton v. New York (I find it difficult to believe that the most-incurious President in US history would go out of his way to acquaint himself the law in that area), so the question is, did a legally ignorant speechwriter or speechwriters insert that into the speech, or did Bush just ad-lib it?
I’d take a look at Will’s updated post; it turns out the administration has been making noises about the line-item veto for several years, which makes it difficult to believe that even the “most-incurious President in US history” would be unaware of it.
(The snarky version of this comment: “Bush Derangement Syndrome – Catch It!”)
I think “relatively unlikely” is just a wee-bit of an understatement!
And this administration has tried to use signing statements as de facto item veto, though they are surely far less effective than the real thing would be.