Senate Panel Votes To Cut Off Funds To Cheney

Dick Cheney must acknowledge that he is a member of the Executive Branch, and act the part.Senate Panel Votes To Cut Off Funds To CheneyBy Cliff Montgomery – July 14th, 2007Senate Democrats voted on Tuesday to stop funding for Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, in an escalating battle over his constitutionally-mandated compliance with national security disclosure laws.A Senate appropriations committee headed by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) refused to approve $4.8 million for the vice president’s office until Cheney complies with aspects of an executive order concerning classified information.The requirement states that executive branch entities must provide information on how much data they declassify, and how much they keep classified. Such information is then to be given to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a branch of The National Archives.Cheney, with the now-traditional blind approval of this White House, claims that the executive offices of the president and vice president are not bound to the order as they aren’t  Executive Branch “agencies.”But as Durbin pointed out, the order in fact applies not only to Executive agencies, but to “any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.”The appropriations panel approved the funding cut 5-4, strictly along party lines. The measure was part of a funding bill for operations at the White House, the Treasury Department and various smaller agencies.Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said Cheney was deliberately trashing laws which compel the vice president’s office to submit to oversight requirements on classified information. It is the only way his bosses, the American people, can do their job.”Neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law, or the Constitution,” Durbin stated.”For the vice president to believe that he has no responsibility to meet this requirement of the law is a dereliction of duty,” he forcefully added.The matter became a media firestorm after Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said that Cheney’s office had first attempted to argue with the Archives that it was not under the order as it was not “an entity within the executive branch”–an argument which Article II of the U.S. Constitution proves to be horseshit, pure and simple.That sophistry apparently hinged on the notion that the vice president also fulfills a legislative role in Congress as the president of the Senate; though he only definitely exerts this power during those extremely rare occasions when his vote is needed to break a tie.The president himself maintains a legislative role in his veto power; this doesn’t mean that the leader of the Executive Branch is a legislator, and therefore not a part of the Executive.In fact when Cheney’s office has had to submit to any number of oversight measures in the past six years, he’s continually claimed “executive privilege”–which naturally can only belong to offices of the Executive Branch.And since he and other neo-conservatives also continually claim “separation of powers” for both this president and vice president, their own arguments place the vice president’s office exclusively in the Executive–and prove that even Cheney doesn’t believe in this obvious lie.Waxman has also said that Cheney has blocked the archives from performing an on-site perusal of his office–a typical bit of oversight to ensure classified data was properly protected.This funding block, crowed Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), would set an atrocious precedent in executive and legislative relations.”This is going to further erode any sort of working relationship back and forth,” Brownback claimed. “This is a patently bad idea.”What is a “patently bad idea” is letting Cheney, or any other career politician, act as if he is a king rather than a representative. Mr. Brownback’s refusal to hold the vice president accountable for such a treasonous act says more about his lack of respect for either the law or the American people than it does anything else.Last month House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) vowed to push through a similar measure that would have put on hold all of this vice president’s budget until he again acknowledges he is a member of the Executive Branch, and acts the part.“One moment he’s not a part of the executive branch so he can be above the law; but [now] he wants money as part of the executive branch,” Emanuel correctly pointed out.“I’m going to let the money follow his logic,” he added.But the House last month narrowly shot down that measure. It’s a shame. That measure followed Cheney’s own logic beautifully, and it did nothing more than finally hold the neo-conservatives accountable for their own deliberate twists of logic.They will not learn, and certainly will never stop, until someone–Democrat, Republican, or Independent–holds them accountable for their continuous assaults on reason and democracy.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!