I'm thoroughly confused by this bit of posturing.  Congress doesn't have any need to pass a law to enable them to challenge the constitutionality of signing statements.  They seemly need a case in controversy.  Oh, I don't know, maybe someone who was tortured after the McCain amendment was passed?  Someone who was affected by an agency not enforcing the law, because of the signing statement?  

Last I checked, you don't need a special law to challenge unconstitutional actions.  Just a case & the Constitution.

Thalia

Slate has an article on signing statements as well.  Including a humorous link (from the ABA report, actually) on how Bush negated a previous bill on signing statements with, of course, a signing statement.

It's Specter.  He's talked a good game several times now but accomplished a whole lot of nothing.  To quote Dear Leader: "fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Not to mention that it's fairly unlikely that this could get a veto-proof margin; this would be a fine bill for Bush's poor unloved veto stamp.  Or, irony of ironies, he could hack chunks out of it with a signing statement.

Humorless. Cretinous. What'd you expect?

In terms of constitutional legality, I'm sure the arguments in favor and against could stretch for several hundred thousand words. I'd guess the 'unconstitutional' side would win with a pre-Bush Supreme Court, especially since the line-item veto was struck down during Clinton's term.

In pragmatic sense, though, the examples cited in the writeup primarily concern legislation aimed at telling the executive branch how to run its departments and offices. Rather than waving select portions of a bill off with a "how about no?", I'd rather see Bush's proposal  for a line-item veto with legislative redo extended to cover these types of issues (from my read it's aimed at appropriations bills.

While I see the potential for line-item veto abuse, I'm not at all comfortable with an absolute Congressional power of "you'll do what you're told" to the executive branch, especially given the increasing tendency for repulsive amendments to find their way anonymously into bills the midnight before they're voted on by Congress. This year it's:

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush's signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

The office of the President shall not inhibit the covert investigation of citizens deemed by the FBI or CIA to be unpatriotic and/or irrelgious.

it's hard for me to know what to make of this. on the one hand, it bothers me to think that the prez is taking it into his own hands to decide what is or isn't constitutional when that is, as i understand it, the job of the judiciary. on top of that, he's being underhanded about it and setting policy according to his whims, without having to face direct opposition from either of the other two branches of gov't. on the other hand, it sounds like natophonic has some good points in his posts.

i can say that this feels like further evidence of a trend (or maybe it's just always been there) away from governing by concensus. if nothing else, this is a power-grab by the prez and, if he sets precendent with this, all that will result is less cooperation between the branches, more infighting, and, at least in my opinion, less will get accomplished. whether or not this adheres to the letter of the consitution, i can't see how it adheres to the intent of it.

Now with caps!