Lawton M. Chiles Jr. Quotes
Congressional power has not so much been usurped by the Presidency as given up to the Presidency by Congress.
Lawton M. Chiles Jr., 1930-1998, U. S. Senator (Democrat, FL), Governor of Florida, Quoted in James L. Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress, 1981
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This notion seems to have first been expressed by Edward S. Corwin in 1940
Alberto Gonzalez, White House Counsel and later Attorney General who was forced to resign and David S. Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, had come up with a novel view of the powers of the presidency. They argued that since the President is the Commander in Chief, in a war situation or intelligence gathering thereto, has the Constitutional responsibility for that function, he need not obey any laws of Congress as in the conduct of the war Congress would be impinging on the Constitutional separation of powers which itself was prohibited by the Constitution. The argument did not find any significant legal support but for a while the George W. Bush White House behaved as if this were the law, despite the fact that even in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 Congress passed laws regulating the conduct of the armed forces as is provided for in other parts of the Constitution. Yet even Goldsmith would allow the President some powers that many think are unconstitutional and/or belong to Congress. See {32436}.
Bybee, then and Assistant Attorney General, took the legal position that the President could order the torture of enemy combatants regardless of Congressional laws prohibiting torture. Two years later the memo’s recipient, Alberto Gonzalez, in his confirmation hearings as Attorney General, repudiated the memo, then stating that the President was not above the law and had to obey the laws of Congress that apply to the military.
President George W. Bush had ordered NSA agents to bug the phones and email of American citizens who might have been talking with an overseas party or e-mailing them out of the country. The administration thought that American citizens might be part of terrorist sleeper cells or unwittingly were aiding terrorists. The law prohibited such activity—where American citizens were involved—without getting a court order. However, the President claimed that he had the inherent power as commander in chief of exempting the court requirement. Others maintained that even the President is not above the law. What was the big puzzle was that there was a secret court Congress had established just for such cases, but the administration instead decided to bypass the court.
His main reason for believing this is that all appropriations bills must be initiated by the House of Representatives. Lobbyists therefore often give the House more attention than the Senate.
President Abraham Lincoln had pocket vetoed his own party's reconstruction bill in the midst of an election year.
Lawton Mainor Chiles Jr. was an American politician from the U.S. state of Florida. He served as a United States senator from 1971 to 1989 and as the 41st governor of Florida from 1991 to 1998.
