Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) shares his message to voters in the Uncommitted Movement who are considering not voting in the presidential race over the Biden administration's handling of Israel.
I’m trying to understand how this system works and came across this article from Al Jazeera which, if I’m reading it correctly, is saying that the US did determine gross human rights violations but the Biden administration is refusing to apply the Leahy Law. Doesn’t this mean that Biden does have the authority to stop sending military aid but isn’t, or am I misunderstanding something? Also, aside from Leahy Law why can’t he veto the military aid?
Oh man, this is a doozy. You aren’t wrong but I’ve got to get some sleep. To explain this is A LOT.
The thing is the Leahy Law doesn’t put the power directly in the President’s hands. It grants the vetting process to the Secretary of State. Which is a member of the cabinet of the President. Which I don’t know how familiar you are with how the Executive Office works or not. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the one who wields the power to deny Israel’s aid.
There’s Executive Orders (EO) that the President can give but there’s the whole “what if” Blinken quits given an EO and then we have to get the Senate involved which is currently 50-50 on Republicans and Democrats. Which that turns it even more complex and Senators can delay confirmation until after the election or if they’re really bitter, until next year. Which means that everything that requires a Secretary of State would get put on pause.
I get that everyone thinks the President gets to have the final say, but the President orders people around on EOs, which the various Secretaries can just quit if they don’t want to follow them, and then that kicks everything to the Senate. That’s kind of a built in protection in our system of Government to prevent a President becoming a dictator. If a President wants XYZ done and the Secretary thinks that’s bad, they quit and the Senate becomes involved potentially delaying the President forever.
There’s way more background on why Blinken has only stopped two aids and also because of classification reasons, not every stopping of aid can be published, unless the President does so since the President has unilateral authority on classification markings (except for anything related to the name of spies and nuclear bomb designs, that is one of the few things that requires both the President and Congress to sign off on, there’s a few other exceptions as well but I won’t go into them).
But anyways, Blinken is the one who can stop aid. The President could order him, but he could also quit, which means the Senate would get involved, and I can explain why all of that would be messy if you need me to.
why can’t he veto the military aid
The President only has veto power on bills that have passed both the House and the Senate. Once something becomes law, the President “has” to carry it out. There’s a ton of background on “Executive Discretion” and any time the President wants to exercise discretion, Congress can sue, which then brings the matter into the other branch, the Judicial. Plenty of States that would sign on, to a Congressional suit (which that’s a requirement for Congress to sue the President, at least one State has to join in).
So Biden could use Discretion to delay funding, and he’s done that quite a few times, but he can’t just outright NOT pay when the law requires him to do so. That discretion comes from a kind of EO called a “Reviewing Executive Order” and it requires a department to “review” ((insert whatever the topic is)). That’s a delay, but it isn’t a halt. The President has to follow the law as well. So if we have a law that says, “we provide $xxx to Israel’s Iron Dome”, we have to send that money to them at some point.
A lot of the funds that Israel is getting, is funding they secured before the Gaza invasion. There’s been recent upping of that funding that Congress has passed, but that’s been on things called Continuing Resolutions (CR). Republicans in the House (who are the ones who control what the US Budget is) have been using CRs to get choice things enacted. That’s because Republicans in the House have passed rules on how a budget may be formed in the House that are impossible to comply with (which that’s a whole long story). So if Democrats in the House refuse to accept the CRs the Republicans offer, the Government shuts down.
Anyways, that’s been a lot already. If you need me to clear anything up, let me know. But Harris likely wouldn’t have Blinken as Secretary of State, which would fix A WHOLE LOT. But I don’t know, because if the election isn’t kind to Democrats in the Senate and Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they could block Harris’ Sec. of State unless they specifically pledged to support Israel. Now they could absolutely lie about that, but then Congress could also impeach them, but that would cut off aid to Israel for some time as that’s not an easy process to impeach a secretary of state.
This comment needs no be posted and stickied everywhere. I mean everywhere. Thank you for your detailed response and explanation of how the executive works. I’m saving this comment.
If you want to keep up with daily events in the Executive, the Federal Register (Fed. Reg. or FR) cannot be beat. It contains all of the FOIA request, every public inspection requirement, CFR proposals, Executive Orders, Presidential Proclamations, and so forth.
If you want something more specific to rule making, you can find that here. Rule making makes a bit more sense when you think about it. Say Congress passes a law that says “build me a road between Texas and South Dakota”. The law will usually say who (department) is in charge of that and then that department will take the money and begin rule making. Rule making is basically laying out the path the road will take, what kind of materials will be used, what companies are allowed to bid, environmental guidelines, etc, etc ,etc… Once those rules have been made the who is going to do it is determined. Like Highways in this case, the Federal Government provides the money and the States are the ones who select the labor and make minor course corrections to the highway (like if it’s about to pass through a cemetery or something).
Rule making is also sometimes called regulation. Because the agency put in charge is regulating the action being done to ensure compliance with what they think the law is asking for, because Congress is very NOT detail oriented until they really want to be. Also with rule making, Congress can “ask” a department to come in and meet with them if Congress thinks some of the rules don’t mesh with what they were thinking.
There’s also override laws, which Congress passes like a normal law. These laws, remember the Constitution requires laws to be applied equally if they involve the public so these override laws are written as such so that they only apply to a executive department, specifically smack the department over the head and “corrects” where the rule making went wrong. These don’t happen often, but we did have one back in Trump days over the FCC. The FCC had made a new rule that required ISPs to get permission to sell customer data, and Congress plus then President Trump overrode the FCC, explicitly banning them from ever creating such a rule. It’s still open if the FTC could make such a rule. But that’s an example of an override of regulation.
Oh also my whole comment didn’t even touch on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which is what would happen if a Secretary quits. Very, very, very long story short. The Deputy Secretary automatically gets to become the “acting” Secretary BUT they cannot do any “exclusive actions”, which that Leahy rule is indeed an exclusive action. The “acting” Secretary can only maintain “status quo” until the Senate Confirms that the acting secretary is indeed the actual secretary. But an “acting” position can only last for 210 days, after which the office is then considered “vacant”, but none of that matters anymore because Congress uses “pro forma” sessions to prevent recessed appointments. But typically, if a position is “vacant” and Congress is not in Session, the President can make a recess appointment.
If you ask me, what we really need is an Amendment to the Constitution that provides the President a way to declare Congress as absent and if some threshold of Congress doesn’t become present, then the President can then call Congress not in Session. The whole “pro forma” sessions of Congress really needs to stop, like in a really bad way. Sort of like how Filibuster should return to requiring a person physically speak for the entire duration of the filibuster and must remain on topic.
Congress has gotten really soft on everything and that’s allowed them to permit a lot of bad faith actions in Congress to happen. It used to be that it was “gentleman’s agreement” that Congress would behave and act in good faith, but boy have we really fallen down on that since the 1980s.
Not the person you replied to, but just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write up such an informative answer. I learned quite a few things from it.
I’m trying to understand how this system works and came across this article from Al Jazeera which, if I’m reading it correctly, is saying that the US did determine gross human rights violations but the Biden administration is refusing to apply the Leahy Law. Doesn’t this mean that Biden does have the authority to stop sending military aid but isn’t, or am I misunderstanding something? Also, aside from Leahy Law why can’t he veto the military aid?
Oh man, this is a doozy. You aren’t wrong but I’ve got to get some sleep. To explain this is A LOT.
The thing is the Leahy Law doesn’t put the power directly in the President’s hands. It grants the vetting process to the Secretary of State. Which is a member of the cabinet of the President. Which I don’t know how familiar you are with how the Executive Office works or not. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the one who wields the power to deny Israel’s aid.
There’s Executive Orders (EO) that the President can give but there’s the whole “what if” Blinken quits given an EO and then we have to get the Senate involved which is currently 50-50 on Republicans and Democrats. Which that turns it even more complex and Senators can delay confirmation until after the election or if they’re really bitter, until next year. Which means that everything that requires a Secretary of State would get put on pause.
I get that everyone thinks the President gets to have the final say, but the President orders people around on EOs, which the various Secretaries can just quit if they don’t want to follow them, and then that kicks everything to the Senate. That’s kind of a built in protection in our system of Government to prevent a President becoming a dictator. If a President wants XYZ done and the Secretary thinks that’s bad, they quit and the Senate becomes involved potentially delaying the President forever.
There’s way more background on why Blinken has only stopped two aids and also because of classification reasons, not every stopping of aid can be published, unless the President does so since the President has unilateral authority on classification markings (except for anything related to the name of spies and nuclear bomb designs, that is one of the few things that requires both the President and Congress to sign off on, there’s a few other exceptions as well but I won’t go into them).
But anyways, Blinken is the one who can stop aid. The President could order him, but he could also quit, which means the Senate would get involved, and I can explain why all of that would be messy if you need me to.
The President only has veto power on bills that have passed both the House and the Senate. Once something becomes law, the President “has” to carry it out. There’s a ton of background on “Executive Discretion” and any time the President wants to exercise discretion, Congress can sue, which then brings the matter into the other branch, the Judicial. Plenty of States that would sign on, to a Congressional suit (which that’s a requirement for Congress to sue the President, at least one State has to join in).
So Biden could use Discretion to delay funding, and he’s done that quite a few times, but he can’t just outright NOT pay when the law requires him to do so. That discretion comes from a kind of EO called a “Reviewing Executive Order” and it requires a department to “review” ((insert whatever the topic is)). That’s a delay, but it isn’t a halt. The President has to follow the law as well. So if we have a law that says, “we provide $xxx to Israel’s Iron Dome”, we have to send that money to them at some point.
A lot of the funds that Israel is getting, is funding they secured before the Gaza invasion. There’s been recent upping of that funding that Congress has passed, but that’s been on things called Continuing Resolutions (CR). Republicans in the House (who are the ones who control what the US Budget is) have been using CRs to get choice things enacted. That’s because Republicans in the House have passed rules on how a budget may be formed in the House that are impossible to comply with (which that’s a whole long story). So if Democrats in the House refuse to accept the CRs the Republicans offer, the Government shuts down.
Anyways, that’s been a lot already. If you need me to clear anything up, let me know. But Harris likely wouldn’t have Blinken as Secretary of State, which would fix A WHOLE LOT. But I don’t know, because if the election isn’t kind to Democrats in the Senate and Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they could block Harris’ Sec. of State unless they specifically pledged to support Israel. Now they could absolutely lie about that, but then Congress could also impeach them, but that would cut off aid to Israel for some time as that’s not an easy process to impeach a secretary of state.
Hey, professor, where do I sign up for the next civics lecture?
I’ve been needing some better gov’t education since long before high school.
This comment needs no be posted and stickied everywhere. I mean everywhere. Thank you for your detailed response and explanation of how the executive works. I’m saving this comment.
If you want to keep up with daily events in the Executive, the Federal Register (Fed. Reg. or FR) cannot be beat. It contains all of the FOIA request, every public inspection requirement, CFR proposals, Executive Orders, Presidential Proclamations, and so forth.
If you want something more specific to rule making, you can find that here. Rule making makes a bit more sense when you think about it. Say Congress passes a law that says “build me a road between Texas and South Dakota”. The law will usually say who (department) is in charge of that and then that department will take the money and begin rule making. Rule making is basically laying out the path the road will take, what kind of materials will be used, what companies are allowed to bid, environmental guidelines, etc, etc ,etc… Once those rules have been made the who is going to do it is determined. Like Highways in this case, the Federal Government provides the money and the States are the ones who select the labor and make minor course corrections to the highway (like if it’s about to pass through a cemetery or something).
Rule making is also sometimes called regulation. Because the agency put in charge is regulating the action being done to ensure compliance with what they think the law is asking for, because Congress is very NOT detail oriented until they really want to be. Also with rule making, Congress can “ask” a department to come in and meet with them if Congress thinks some of the rules don’t mesh with what they were thinking.
There’s also override laws, which Congress passes like a normal law. These laws, remember the Constitution requires laws to be applied equally if they involve the public so these override laws are written as such so that they only apply to a executive department, specifically smack the department over the head and “corrects” where the rule making went wrong. These don’t happen often, but we did have one back in Trump days over the FCC. The FCC had made a new rule that required ISPs to get permission to sell customer data, and Congress plus then President Trump overrode the FCC, explicitly banning them from ever creating such a rule. It’s still open if the FTC could make such a rule. But that’s an example of an override of regulation.
Oh also my whole comment didn’t even touch on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which is what would happen if a Secretary quits. Very, very, very long story short. The Deputy Secretary automatically gets to become the “acting” Secretary BUT they cannot do any “exclusive actions”, which that Leahy rule is indeed an exclusive action. The “acting” Secretary can only maintain “status quo” until the Senate Confirms that the acting secretary is indeed the actual secretary. But an “acting” position can only last for 210 days, after which the office is then considered “vacant”, but none of that matters anymore because Congress uses “pro forma” sessions to prevent recessed appointments. But typically, if a position is “vacant” and Congress is not in Session, the President can make a recess appointment.
If you ask me, what we really need is an Amendment to the Constitution that provides the President a way to declare Congress as absent and if some threshold of Congress doesn’t become present, then the President can then call Congress not in Session. The whole “pro forma” sessions of Congress really needs to stop, like in a really bad way. Sort of like how Filibuster should return to requiring a person physically speak for the entire duration of the filibuster and must remain on topic.
Congress has gotten really soft on everything and that’s allowed them to permit a lot of bad faith actions in Congress to happen. It used to be that it was “gentleman’s agreement” that Congress would behave and act in good faith, but boy have we really fallen down on that since the 1980s.
Anyway, I’m rambling.
Dude. This is awesome. We need to make this into YouTube shorts or tik tok. Anything to get civic education out. We are extremely in need…
Not the person you replied to, but just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write up such an informative answer. I learned quite a few things from it.