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.
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.
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.
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.