Checks and Balances?
Our hometown paper, The Providence Journal, reports on the Senior Senator from Rhode Island's comments to the local Bar Association:
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed decried President Bush’s attempts to “disrupt the balance of powers” between the three branches of government, telling a lawyers' group that the president is using “dubious constitutional theories” to exert his authority unchecked by Congress.
Bush “has taken the notion of separation of powers, which I think is an idea that has proved its worth over several centuries, and tried to eviscerate it,” Reed said as he and fellow Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke to the Federal Bar Association’s Rhode Island chapter during a breakfast meeting at the Providence Biltmore Hotel.
After three administrations and 16 years in Washington, D.C., Reed said he is struck by the various means that Bush, a Republican, has used to extend his authority.
Since 2001, Bush has used 152 “signing statements” to reserve the right to ignore or reinterpret measures that he has signed into law, Reed said. Also, Bush has used executive orders and legal opinions to assert his power, and he has ignored “bona fide” requests from Congress for information, he said.
“All of these I think raise the serious question of where is the executive going,” Reed said. “I believe that we need serious checks and balances on the president. I think it’s not only just to demonstrate the prerogative of the Congress, but also it provides, I think, for much better government.”
Reed said he hopes that members of the administration are beginning to realize that congressional oversight can be a help and not a hindrance.
“One of the sad facts of the whole operation in Iraq is that there was no serious congressional review of the any of the plans for occupation,” Reed said. “The Congress -- the Republican Congress -- was simply supine. And as a result, there was no plan.”
Bush “has taken the notion of separation of powers, which I think is an idea that has proved its worth over several centuries, and tried to eviscerate it,” Reed said as he and fellow Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke to the Federal Bar Association’s Rhode Island chapter during a breakfast meeting at the Providence Biltmore Hotel.
After three administrations and 16 years in Washington, D.C., Reed said he is struck by the various means that Bush, a Republican, has used to extend his authority.
Since 2001, Bush has used 152 “signing statements” to reserve the right to ignore or reinterpret measures that he has signed into law, Reed said. Also, Bush has used executive orders and legal opinions to assert his power, and he has ignored “bona fide” requests from Congress for information, he said.
“All of these I think raise the serious question of where is the executive going,” Reed said. “I believe that we need serious checks and balances on the president. I think it’s not only just to demonstrate the prerogative of the Congress, but also it provides, I think, for much better government.”
Reed said he hopes that members of the administration are beginning to realize that congressional oversight can be a help and not a hindrance.
“One of the sad facts of the whole operation in Iraq is that there was no serious congressional review of the any of the plans for occupation,” Reed said. “The Congress -- the Republican Congress -- was simply supine. And as a result, there was no plan.”
The good Senator is spot-on accurate in his assessment of the Republican Congress through 2006 as "simply supine." Some of us are beginning to wonder if that assessment may be mostly correct when applied to the Democratic Congress we elected in 2006! Please, if you haven't already done so, use some of the action buttons on this blog to put the heat on Congress!
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