This Is What Nancy Should Have Done on FISA

Josh marvels at the (big surprise) latest galling corruption from a member of the Alaska delegation: Don Young snuck an earmark into a 2005 bill after it had been passed by both houses of Congress, but before Bush signed it.

The ‘Coconut Road’ earmark wasn’t in the bill passed by the Houseand Senate. I don’t mean it wasn’t in the original bills before theywent to conference (where the separate bills from the House and theSenate are reconciled into a single bill). It wasn’t in the final,reconciled piece of legislation passed by both houses of Congress after conference. 

But it is there now. 

So here’s what happened. Apparently Young added the text afterCongress had already passed it but before the president signed it. AsLaura McGann explainsin this post, this must have occurred during the process called "billenrollment" when revisions of grammar and technical but not substantivechanges are permitted to be made.

The president did sign the bill. But the portion apparentlyadded by Young, if I understand anything about our system ofgovernment, was never passed by Congress. So it means nothing.

He goes on to ask how common it is.

The details aren’t entirely clear from Laura McGann’s reporting on this. But the scheme may, in fact, be legal (or at least have legal precedent) based on a ruling issued by John Bates last year. At issue was a fiscal bill from the previous year, which passed in slightly different form in the House and the Senate. It included some politically controversial items (and passed only with typical Republican arm-twisting). So rather than pass the bill for real, BushCo just picked one and signed it into law.

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  1. Anonymous says:

    if pelosi and reid had wanted to stop bush’s fisa bill (s.1927), there’s a lot of legal things they could have tried – and didn’t. so i find it hard to think that they really wanted to stop it.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Selise – Good to see you here, and you are so right. Hell, they control the floor, all they had to do was keep the matter off the floor. Not that hard; problem is they cut a deal with the devils and didn’t want to stop passage. Absolutely traitorous to our country and it’s Constitution.

  3. Anonymous says:

    hey bmaz. usually i just lurk here… but this fisa thing has me so pissed off, i just can’t get over it. thought i’d get it out of my system with this, but it hasn’t helped. i’m just seem to get more angry every day.

  4. John Lopresti says:

    Some of the background research to which ew links reminded me of one of ML’s typically exhaustive articles at the college website February 2006 in the week Bush signed the budget package which included the Cheney inspired measure to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and infirm and indigent. ML covers the parliamentary illigitimacy of the president’s signing a bill the substance of which is altered by subterfuge instead of being identical to the bill as straightforwardly wrangled thru both chambers congress in due process fashion. I want to look at fas for any related CRS histories to place into context the deservedly ignominious methods with which the Republicans led that 109th congress. Though PublicC sang in its chains like the sea over that crude Republican illicitude, I continue to believe if Democrats widen their lead in the 111th Congress, we are likely to see some housecleaning in this matter. It will be easier for congress to accomplish than obliterating cherished earmarks. I kind of appreciate the elected representatives’ sense of pride when they send moneystreams back to the hustings; it is a process that needs better oversight, though; and is a time-honored albeit marginally venal tradition in congress. Sen.Biden is one who has aired complaints about some of the illicit management practices in teh 109th congress, but I have yet to construct a meaningful dialog with his campaign on the issue; I assess his mood on the topic as circumspect, as in, wait until we can vote beyond the cloture threshold from our own caucus majority margin. I am glad ew took the time to draw the connection among some of these important issues.

  5. John Lopresti says:

    POSTED twice: TypePad hiccuped in the upload.
    —
    Some of the background research to which ew links reminded me of one of ML’s typically exhaustive articles at the college website February 2006 in the week Bush signed the budget package which included the Cheney inspired measure to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and infirm and indigent. ML covers the parliamentary illigitimacy of the president’s signing a bill the substance of which is altered by subterfuge instead of being identical to the bill as straightforwardly wrangled thru both chambers congress in due process fashion. I want to look at fas for any related CRS histories to place into context the deservedly ignominious methods with which the Republicans led that 109th congress. Though PublicC sang in its chains like the sea over that crude Republican illicitude, I continue to believe if Democrats widen their lead in the 111th Congress, we are likely to see some housecleaning in this matter. It will be easier for congress to accomplish than obliterating cherished earmarks. I kind of appreciate the elected representatives’ sense of pride when they send moneystreams back to the hustings; it is a process that needs better oversight, though; and is a time-honored albeit marginally venal tradition in congress. Sen.Biden is one who has aired complaints about some of the illicit management practices in teh 109th congress, but I have yet to construct a meaningful dialog with his campaign on the issue; I assess his mood on the topic as circumspect, as in, wait until we can vote beyond the cloture threshold from our own caucus majority margin. I am glad ew took the time to draw the connection among some of these important issues.

  6. spoonful says:

    Couldn’t agree more about this FISA nonsense – if we can’t trust the Dems, then what? We just witnessed a classic case of the chicken eating the fox.

  7. pseudonymous in nc says:

    I agree with those who think that while the King of Pork’s trick is noteworthy, it doesn’t have much to do with the utter cave on FISA. The House managers could have stopped the Senate bill from getting to the floor. They could have ensured that a conference was necessary. But too many Lap Dogs wanted to go home for the hols, and the will wasn’t there. The Dem leadership across both chambers fucked itself, and fucked us more.

  8. ab initio says:

    Considering that the venerable Henry Waxman did not know about inherent contempt and he is the Chairman of the House Oversight committee what can we expect from Pelosi and Reid?

    Did any of you who attended YKos and had a chance to hobnob with the DC Dem elites get a sense of why the Dems leadership always seem to be caught flat footed? Is it the other side of the coin of Repub â€incompetence†in governing? Or is incompetence the vehicle to deliberately obfuscate a deliberate plan towards authoritarianism?