Thursday Constitution blogging

Article I.

Section. 7.

Clause 2: Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

The term "pocket veto" refers to that last phrase. As the Senate web site describes it:

pocket veto - The Constitution grants the President 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the President has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature. However, if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, the bill does not become law.

Last Friday jerkwad [one of his more printable official titles at this site] declared that the defense authorization bill was dead by pocket veto.

The alleged objection, as reported by the Washington Post:

Although the president objected to some details in the bill that authorizes major military programs, his aides said he does not seek to reopen those debates. But he said a provision that would permit plaintiffs' lawyers to freeze Iraqi funds would do intolerable harm to the country's reconstruction efforts and the United States' relationship with Iraq.

WaPo also notes: "To block efforts by Congress to challenge the pocket veto, however, Bush is also going the traditional route, sending over to Congress his veto message and the unsigned bill."

Paul Kiel, at TPM, writes the following:

Congress will just have to start over. Keep in mind that the bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

But, as Kagro X at Daily Kos first pointed out, there's a problem with that. Though the president said that "adjournment of Congress" allowed him to pocket veto, Congress was not, in fact, in adjournment.

To prevent administration monkey business during the holiday recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) kept the Senate in pro forma session throughout. By keeping the Senate nominally in session (someone shows up for a few minutes every third day), Reid stifled the administration's desire for a bunch of recess appointments.

The White House response? Kiel again: "True, the Senate was in session, they say. But we sent the president's veto to the House, and they were in recess. So voila! pocket veto!"

We seem to have some hair splitting going on here. The maladministration says that the House was not in session and it is the house in which, like all funding bills, it originated. Both true. But the Constitution speaks not of an individual house but of Congress being adjourned. And the Senate was kept in pro forma session. On the face of it, I think one has to give this one to Congress and not the White House since Congress was not fully adjourned.

This may go to the courts.

The constitutional questions aside, I, at least, cannot avoid suspicions that there may be other reasons for objecting to this law. It is, after all, the DEFENSE appropriations bill that Bush has been having hissyfits about getting to his desk. It does not contain any binding language about withdrawals etc., so the Dems have rolled over once more. It does have elements designed to support the troops beyond what the White House would do (but can any rational person believe the White House gives a damn about the troops?).

Steve Benen had this to say last Friday:

This is just bizarre. If the provision of the bill was so offensive, why didn’t the White House, which was aware of the legislation’s progress as it passed, say something sooner?

In the process, Bush has rejected a pay raise for the troops, VA care for wounded veterans, a new “Truman Commission” to fight fraud and waste by military contractors, and expanded job protections for family members of severely wounded troops.

John Aravosis focused on it this way:

Part of what troubled Bush about the legislation is that it would permit US troops to seek compensation for having been tortured by Saddam during the first Gulf War.

Digby had a more suspicious commenter over at her place:

Re: your post "Where Will It End?" I suspect that the key to the pocket veto has nothing to do with Iraqi assets. Rather, it is contained a little line buried in the last paragraph of the Memorandum of Disapproval: "... I continue to have serious objections to other provisions of this bill, including section 1079 relating to intelligence matters . . ."

What is in 1079 you ask? A provision requiring the Director of National Intelligence to make available to the Congressional intelligence committees, upon the request of the chair or ranking minority member, "any existing intelligence assessment, report, estimate, or legal opinion," within certain conditions. See here.(I don't know if that link will continue to work...but you can requery HR 1585 yourself if it is broken by the time you write this.)

What specifically does Bush fear must be turned over? It's hard to say.

Waterboarding legal opinions? Opinions or other documents related to the torture tapes? Something related to the recent Iran 180? Who knows. It's also not clear to me what this language adds, since Congress already should have the inherent and statutory power to subpeona these materials. I'd have to look further into it.

All very curious.

Well, I must say that the Constitution is more interesting than I thought it was in high school. My apologies to Mr. Sawyers who tried to teach us something about political science.

UPDATE:
For a look at how the presiden't "pocket veto" affects our troops, check out georgia10's post on the Army's halting of bonus payments. Marcy Wheeler also looks at the nonsense in Emperor Hissyfit's rationale for not signing it in this article.
--the BB