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Presidential use of the autopen

Is the use of the autopen to sign bills Constitutional?


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ludahai

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Article 1 Section 7 Clause 2

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approves he shall sign it,

To me, it can't be Constitutional. The Constitution clearly states that a bill must be signed by the president, not an Autopen. I don't even know if an Autopen would constitute a legal signature for contracts, though perhaps someone on here can clarify that use.
 
I don't much like the idea of using an Autopen to sign legislation.
 
I think it should be avoided when possible, but I don't know that I'd say it's unconstitutional. As long as it's clear that it was the president's intent to sign the law, I wouldn't argue about it too much. If there's ever any question about it though, I think I'd err on the side of it NOT being valid.
 
Don't care. If the president supports the bill, it doesn't matter what he uses to sign it. There are more important issues, such as the bill he signed with the autopen, aka the Patriot Act.
 
Don't care. If the president supports the bill, it doesn't matter what he uses to sign it. There are more important issues, such as the bill he signed with the autopen, aka the Patriot Act.

The Constitution is VERY clear. It states that it must be signed by the president. It isn't intent of the President.

Someone could challenge this in court and could possibly win, which creates a very dangerous situation.
 
The Constitution is VERY clear. It states that it must be signed by the president. It isn't intent of the President.

Someone could challenge this in court and could possibly win, which creates a very dangerous situation.

You know, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the Patriot act is a larger violation of the Constitution than using an autopen to sign it. If the founders were here right now, I think I can take a guess as to which one they'd be more concerned about.
 
I don't think any president, in recent time, has read all the bills he has signed.
Most likely he has received a brief by a staffer and said "yea or nay" to that.

That should just about disqualify most bills passed in the last 20-30 years.
 
I feel that how the signature is applied is a matter of preference, however I believe the Constitutional intent would be that the President at least be present and personally involved in the signing process. I don't much like Obama being in France, while a signature is applied in DC.
 
Constitutional? I don't know but it was cowardly. Pretty much along the lines of his long history of voting "present".
 
I don't belive it is close to the same as a real signature and could make everything that contains one scrap paper, and it should.
 
I don't discern a moral difference between doing a thing and ordering someone to do it. If he gives the order, the signature is still binding.
 
I don't discern a moral difference between doing a thing and ordering someone to do it. If he gives the order, the signature is still binding.

Wow, you could sign it then, couldn't you? M U S T P R O T E C T O B A M A A T A L L C O S T.
 
Wow, you could sign it then, couldn't you? M U S T P R O T E C T O B A M A A T A L L C O S T.

If so ordered? Yes.

And accusing me of protecting President Obama at all costs is just ridiculous. I didn't vote for him in 2008 and I'm not going to vote for him in 2012. But until January 20th, 2013, he's my President.
 
I have no issue with this in isolated instances where action is required immedietely and the President can fully review the matter but is not present to sign, but has given explicite authorization of its use.

However, I think 99% of the time outside of that, for something like this, it should be his individual signature.

I work with an auto-pen daily for a high level executive in the government, and use it rather frequently. Typically we use it for correspondence. When it comes to actual policy changes, the Director signs these things himself. The same should be with the President. Except in extenuating circumstances, it should be the original signature.
 
If so ordered? Yes.

And accusing me of protecting President Obama at all costs is just ridiculous. I didn't vote for him in 2008 and I'm not going to vote for him in 2012. But until January 20th, 2013, he's my President.

So, it doesn't matter if he does anything illegal or unconstitutional, he is still your president and what he says, goes?
 
So, it doesn't matter if he does anything illegal or unconstitutional, he is still your president and what he says, goes?

I think more he's saying that he's the President, and just because he may not be the President he voted for doesn't mean he's going to get up in arms over something he doesn't actually have a problem with.

IE, American was suggesting that Kori felt he must "PROTECT OBAMA AT ALL COSTS". That's not the case at all. He feels the use of the auto-pen isn't an issue. Not because he needs to "Protect Obama", but because he doesn't feel its an issue. The fact that he didn't vote for Obama doesn't mean he's going to ACT like its an issue to him when it really isn't, because rather he voted for him or not he's the President and he's going to treat him fairly with regards to Kori's views.

Similarly, I imagine if Kori HAD voted for Obama and he DID have a problem with the auto-pen, he'd state his problem as well despite his vote because again...its not about whether or not he's voted for him or if he needs to protect/attack him. Its about Kori's individual stance.
 
So, it doesn't matter if he does anything illegal or unconstitutional, he is still your president and what he says, goes?

yep - even to you over there being all conservative and stuff. He is the president and what he says go . . . you don't hav eto support or agree with him - it's not a personal issue, here, it's a national issue.

We side and determine with our vote and involvement - but until he's out he's your president, too. . . he's *our* president.
 
article

Article 1 Section 7 Clause 2



To me, it can't be Constitutional. The Constitution clearly states that a bill must be signed by the president, not an Autopen. I don't even know if an Autopen would constitute a legal signature for contracts, though perhaps someone on here can clarify that use.

It is a clear violation of the constitution because it says the president must sign it if he approves of it. A auto-pen is not the president and the auto-pen was not elected to office to sign the bills and it doesn't matter if who authorized the auto pen because it blatantly violates the constitution seeing how it says the president must sign it if he approves of the bill, it does not say he can delegate this authority to anyone or something else. It doesn't matter if other presidents did this before(I do not know if they did nor have I read the whole thread), it is still wrong. It doesn't matter if he originally intends to sign the bill because politicians are scum and they will take advantage of the autopen by sneaking in unrelated **** into the bill. Its bad enough we have some politicians who do not read the bills before voting yes for them we do not need politicians not signing the bills.
 
I see this as a non-issue, he should have simply resigned it on his return.
 
Yeah, let's waste time and non-existent money on a lawsuit over autopen.
 
Yeah, let's waste time and non-existent money on a lawsuit over autopen.

There is no worry that congress or senate could take advantage of the fact the president is not signing the bill?
 
There is no worry that congress or senate could take advantage of the fact the president is not signing the bill?

He's giving authorization to approve bills that the House and Senate have already voted on. As another poster mentioned, the likelihood that either house or the president are actually reading these bills in their entirety is pretty much non-existent. If we want to solve the problem we need to go to the root of it. Fixating on autopen is silly.
 
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