Veto.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Is this a president who understands what unconstitutional means or an orange haired wind bag who says whatever is expedient?

It's a very interesting question. Each branch is responsible for preserving and protecting the Constitution. In your scenario it depends on the bill. Veto is the obvious answer. Signing and not enforcing the unconstitutional part (dependent on how the law is written) is another perfectly viable and constitutional option.

Huh? So you let the next guy enforce the unconstitutional bits?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Presuming he actually believes it to be "clearly unconstitutional" (which I admit is a perilous presumption), sending it back to Congress to be rewritten as to pass Constitutional muster, should be option A. With that carries the option for Congress to let it die. If Congress overrides the President's veto, then he's fulfilled his Constitutional responsibility, and can take executive action from there, to one degree or another.

A very distant option B should be to refuse to sign it and allow it to pass into law, then take executive action from there, to one degree or another.

An even more distant option C would be to swallow concerns about Constitutionality, sign it into law, and take executive action from there, to one degree or another.

Option D, which is so far from the epicenter of Presidential obligation as to require the Hubble Telescope to locate, is to 1) pass the "clearly unconstitutional" bill into law 2) without first attempting to have it rewritten as to pass Constitutional muster and 3) without emphasizing that point via veto, then 4) announcing to the world that you, as President, just signed into law a bill that is clearly unconstitutional without having done 1), 2), or 3).

The criticisms that he genuinely doesn't understand his role as President never rang more true than here, as does the criticism that Conservatives only care about the Constitution when Democrats are in power.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Based on past behaviour, the current president will sign any piece of paper put in front of him, apparently just coz its a great photo opportunity.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

If he really believed it violated the Constitution, and if he knew anything about the Constitution or his proper role as president, or cared, he'd refuse to sign it, refuse to enforce it, and let the SC suss it out. (Sending it back to Congress for a rewrite to conform with the Constitution is pie in the sky thinking. Even in normal times, that's unrealistically optimistic. And there's zero chance that would happen in today's all encompassing governmental dysfunction.)

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

There really are no Constitutional restrictions anymore.


The ink wasn't dry on the Constitution before all 3 branches were pushing shit that wasn't Constitutional. The purpose of the Constitution was to create a carefully limited Federal government. If the people wanted change, they could to it thru the Amendment Process.

It took about 10min tho for folks to start coming up with "good ideas" that the feds "should do". But in order to do those things, the federal government would have to be more powerful. But power is a zero sum game so every time the feds got more authority, the people and the states retained less.

The federal government was supposed to be limited by the Constitution. But a couple hundred years of interpretation and precedence has removed those limits. If we took the Constitution seriously, the Amendment Process would be very active.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

If the President believes the bill to be clearly unconstitutional then she should veto it.

Don't forget that pesky third branch of government. The President could veto, then when his veto is overridden, the Executive branch could challenge the Constitutionality of the law through the Judicial branch.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Right. Or, the Court could issue a unanimous ruling upholding the law, while complaining about it's unconstitutionality in it's majority opinion. Which is effectively what the President did here.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Alternatively, the court could issue opinions based on foreign laws, which at least on of the Justices has admitted to and advocated for, so maybe Trump isn't that far out of the Washington norm.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."