Can Congress Keep President Obama out of the Twilight Zone?

Jonathan Weisman writes for tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal:

As a candidate, Mr. Obama vowed that he wouldn’t abuse the presidential signing statement, a declaration issued by the president when he signs a bill to give his interpretation of that law. President George W. Bush used so many signing statements — more than 750 — that the American Bar Association criticized it as an abuse of power.

After Mr. Obama’s issuance of his second signing statement last month, even some Democrats say he isn’t keeping his word on reining in unilateral presidential actions.

“Of course there’s a broader issue here,” said House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), referring to the brewing battles with Mr. Obama over presidential prerogative. “It’s outrageous. It’s exactly what the Bush people did.”

Oooooh! Barney may have to be called to the Oval Office for another charm injection. It sounds like the last one is wearing off.

On June 24, Obama issued a signing statement claiming that he did not have to follow the limitations on funds that Congress appropriated for the World bank and International Monetary Fund. Incensed,

The House rebuked President Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints.

House members approved an amendment by a 429-2 vote to have the Obama administration pressure the World Bank to strengthen labor and environmental standards and require a Treasury Department report on World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) activities.

Back to the WSJ article:

In a letter slated for delivery on Wednesday, Mr. Frank, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.), and New York Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks will inform the president that if he issues another signing statement on IMF and World Bank funding, Congress will cut off the funds he wants.

Interestingly, Sonia Sotomayor was asked about presidential signing statements in her Senate Confirmation Hearing today. Senator Diane Feinstein asked Sotomayor if it is Constitutional for Presidents to refuse to enforce certain parts of laws passed by Congress. Her response:

Justice Jackson, in his concurrence in the Youngstown steel seizure case, and that involved President Truman’s seizures of steel factories” — that was a 1952 case in which the court dealt a stinging rebuke to what it considered to be Truman’s executive overreach — “there, Justice Jackson … says that you always have to look at assertions by the president that he or she is acting within executive power in the context of what Congress has done or not done…. First, you look at, has Congress expressly addressed or authorized the president to act a certain way.” If so, she said, “then he is acting at his highest stature of power. If the president is acting in prohibition of an expressed or implied act of Congress, then he is working at his lowest ebb.

“If he is acting where Congress hasn’t spoken, then he is acting in what Justice Jackson called ‘the zone of twilight.’ ”

She concluded: “You can’t speak more specifically than that… Other than to say, a president can’t act in violation of the Constitution. No one’s above the law.”

Okay, so is it Constitutional for the President to be in the twilight zone? Sotomayor didn’t quite commit herself on that one.