Am I Missing Something Here.....
 

Or....did we just witness a bypass of the Constitution. I really do not like the Idea of this becoming accepted practice.

Any Thoughts?

"The issue is bizarre, with even constitutional scholars saying they could not think of any precedent for the journey the budget bill took to becoming a law. Republicans are evoking an obscure Supreme Court ruling from the 1890s to suggest that a bill does not actually have to pass both chambers of Congress to become law."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/14157929.htm

I wish the story had more info, like precedence.

I find it surprising that 1. congressional leaders would help out Bush in this manner, when he's a burden to the party, and 2. that democrats aren't squawking about this.

odd that the article does not refer to this 'ruling'. I had to look it up and this is what I found:

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/expo...206/news3.html

The basis for this assertion appears to be the case of Field v. Clark, an 1892 Supreme Court ruling.

The plaintiffs argued that a trade-tariffs bill was not law because the respective journals of the House and Senate did not contain explicit proof that the chambers had passed exactly the same bill in 1890 and that a provision was missing from the enrolled bill signed by President Benjamin Harrison.

The plaintiffs argued that the signatures of the Speaker of the House and the president of the Senate are not adequate to establish that the chambers had acted as those officers attested.

Dick Armey's defense: "It's the deomcrats' fault for not being nice."

The Constitution!? That <a href="http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml">goddamn piece of paper</a>? Whose administration do you think you're under?

/sarcasm.

Seriously, Bush has crapped all over his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution so many times, it's not even news anymore. Only civics geeks are going to care about this story, tragically.

Seems strange to me that they'd try this stunt over $40 billion spread out over 10 years... I wonder if there's more here or if this is simply an unwillingness to admit wrongness. I'll have to track down more info later today.

Under normal circumstances, I think the House would just go back and re-pass the bill. Since this was such a fight the first time through, that might not work a second time.

I'm going to be watching SCOTUS on this one pretty closely. It should be the first real test of the new appointees' loyalty to the administration, and I don't think that there are many people that will argue that the Republicans are in the wrong here. It may be a minor, semantic "wrong", but it's there nonetheless.

*Takes pride in the local news paper* Ther Mercury still gives me hope for the MSM.

President Bush cannot sign into law a bill that never passed the House. It's really that simple. If this gets through, I give all pro guns people my permission to go do their thing. I've had enough.

thats great will, thanks for your go ahead. only one huge problem though......republicans. there is about a snowballs chance in hell that republican citizens are going to confront a spending cut bill even though it may not be technically legal.

This is an interesting line of thought. *If* there ever is a need for the Second Amendment in the way that it was once needed, will all those carrying answer the call to arms? Isn't it possible that those with guns could agree with those userping the power? Just a thought.

This represents a new, dangerous precedent. Not only do I think Bush could get away with this obvious farce, but I think that honest, voting people will go right along with him. Lemmings much?

As far as armed revolt goes, I don't know what it would take to inspire people to arms Will. Dk is right in that it would take more then a spending cut bill, but in a sense that is sad as it would be an afront to the constitution. The really problem would come if the SC allowed said action, because thats when the government as a whole would be violating the constitution and need to be taken down.

If the government passed a law that violated the constitution and the SC cleared it, even though it is an egregious violation of the constitution, like kelo vs. new london, nobody is going to do anything about it. The only time I see any large group of people 'firing back', is when something finally affects a large enough group of people. Thats pretty damn sad.

The tyranny of the majority is nothing new in the US or the rest of the world for that matter. Just ask the Pilgrims, who were so far-right Christian conservative that they got kicked out of England.

I agree that it's pretty unlikely to see any sort of armed uprising over a budget bill, but the precident is troublesome. Personally, I hope that SCOTUS makes them go back and do it right. It's only a minor clericial error in the document, but in the greater sceme of things, it's not very minor.