Presidential AutosigningFollow

Back a month or so ago, when the Patriot Act provisions were about to expire and Obama was overseas for a G-8 summit, Congress managed to pass a bill extending some of the provisions with fifteen minutes left on the clock before they expired. Since there was no way to get a copy of the bill to Obama in time*, he instead authorized some other fellow to use his Autosigner, a gadget that holds a pen and physically replicates his signature. It's typically used for mass mailings and Christmas cards and such.

A group of GOP congressmen are questioning the validity of the law as signed, saying that the Constitution clearly intends for the president himself to physically sign the document. Obama pointed to a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel to President Bush which concluded that autosigning legislation was kopasetic. Said GOP congressmen pointed out dissenting opinions. They want Obama to re-sign the document (by hand, natch) and solemnly swear to never use the Autosigner for such purposes ever again.

The supposed concern is that, by setting a precedence, we could one day be in a situation where the president is largely incapacitated but gives an aide permission to autosign something... or DID he??? It's a pretty edge scenario but, hey, who knows. I've seen "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow" so I know sometimes the president is in some unusual circumstances. I don't have any strong feelings on it, if Obama decided tomorrow to sign it again, good for him. If not... eh. But I guess this will have to be answered sooner or later so what say you?

tl;dr: Steampunk mechano-gadgets to sign laws for the president... yay or nay?


*This is the story as told; whatever clever ideas you have now aren't really relevant.

Edited, Jun 17th 2011 1:15pm by Jophiel

I'm not opposed to the idea in principle, but there need to be clear policies around the practice, preferably before it becomes a serious issue:

What kinds of things can and can't be signed via Autosigner?

What constitutes proper legal authorization (and evidence thereof) from PotUS to use it?

Who is authorized to use it?

Does permission have to be granted explicitly and individually for each time it's used, or can PotUS authorize blanket use for a common purpose (e.g. "all Thanksgiving turkey pardons")?

I'm sure that there are other valid concerns that I can't think of at the moment.

He can decide on getting Osama.

Can't read, don't know history... what did you teach again? Remedial ditch digging?

What qualifies as "sworn testimony" though? Does he have to appear before Congress? Before a Judge? Can he just make a statement to the press? How clear does that statement have to be?



The point of signing a written document is precisely to avoid any ambiguity or question about what the person is approving. The danger of using an auto-signer isn't some aide slipping the wrong piece of paper under it (although there are some potential ramifications there as well), but that because we'd have to be able to account for that possibility we'd have to effectively give a president a "take back" on something he signed (at least anything with an auto-signer). And that opens up a whole huge can of worms.



Except that the president wasn't incapacitated. Not in any manner recognized constitutionally or otherwise, and certainly not in a way which authorizes the Vice President to sign stuff for the president. The president just wasn't physically present with a copy of the bill to sign into law (or whatever it was in this case). Having the VP sign stuff if the President is away opens up even a larger can of worms.

That's why the sentence started with "if."

Except presumably the only cases where this issue even matters are those in which there are legal time requirements. If Obama could wait a couple days to sign the bill, then he wouldn't need to use the auto-signer in the first place. So the question becomes "how legal is the bill signed by the auto-signer" between the time it's signed and the president re-signs it (or affirms his signature in some legally recognized manner).

If the bill is law during that time, then it's not a protection to have him affirm it a couple days later. It's only a protection against errant signing *if* the affirmation has real legal authority. And that puts us in the hairy situation of giving the president a "take back" on his signature. It also still doesn't address the very real question about whether actions taken based on that auto-signed law are legal during that time period. So, if under the authority of the Patriot act, some government agency seizes some evidence for something, is that legal? Can it be used in court later? Can those involved be sued or jailed for taking an illegal action? What if it turns out that the president didn't intend that document to be signed and "takes it back" as I discussed above?

While we're still talking about edge cases here, there are some very real legal issues involving the auto-signer. It's not as simple as "we all know he would have signed it if he'd been there so it's fine".



Yes. A condition which isn't met in the case being discussed here. So what was your point? We're not debating the 25th amendment. It just doesn't apply in this situation, so one wonders why the hell you brought it up?

Edited, Jun 17th 2011 1:02pm by gbaji

Probably because I brought up hypotheticals in the OP. Just sayin'.

I don't think an auto-signer should be used. If manually signing (a) bill(s) in any way proves too cumbersome or justifiably impractical, then the methodology we use to approve bills should be changed, not short-cutted or circumvented. I believe an auto-signer does violate the intent behind having the president sign a bill, and could lead to the eventual questions of the validity of a bill in the future should a questionable, strange, atypical situation arise.

Edited, Jun 17th 2011 3:17pm by Allegory

Sure. But he expanded that hypothetical to a case which is already covered by existing law, and which isn't really relevant (or helpful!) to this discussion. Any method by which the VP gains authority to act as President, even temporarily, would require even greater signatory approval than whatever else we might be considering using an auto-signer for in the first place. If the president isn't able to sign a bill into law in some time sensitive situation, he's not going to be able to sign a letter activating the 25th amendment in order to have the VP sign it either.

Occam's Razor. He's adding complexity to the issue, without adding any value to it.

Maybe a Father's Day gift!

I've done homework in junior high in blood...