Conyers v. Bush: Lawsuit over Federal Deficit Reduction Act
Rep. John Conyer's (D-MI) is suing President Bush over the enactment of the Federal Deficit Rediction Act. Shorter version: The House and Senate passed different versions of the bill and even though they went to conference, the House never voted on the version passed by the Senate as a House clerk changed a provision in the Senate version and Bush signed it into law. Bush can't sign a bill unless it has been agreed to by both the House and Senate.
The Government moved to dismiss (pdf) Rep. Conyer's lawsuit, and last night, he filed his motion and brief in opposition.
No one in the House of Representatives voted on the version of the bill which was signed into law. The Senate version was never presented in the House for a vote. .... The Deficit Reduction Act needed to be passed by the House of Representatives in the same form that it passed the Senate. The Act never did and thus the Act is not valid. A law is not validly enacted if even "one of paragraph of that text" is different.
This seems pretty basic to me. The House members were disenfranchised. If this process is approved, what's to stop Bush from signing into law any bill passed by only one house of Congress? As Conyers said:
"First it was ignoring the Geneva Conventions," said Conyers. "Then it was the abuse of Presidential signing statements. Now our government is arguing that it can pick and choose which laws to ultimately enact, regardless of clear Constitutional procedures requiring bicameralism before presentment to the President."
