by mothballed | 2025-09-26 21:09:28+00:00
>You're saying that the President actually has an absolute veto; if he vetoes a bill, and Congress overrides the veto, you're saying the President gets the ultimate veto in that he can just claim the law is unconstitutional and refuse to implement it. So now you have to answer why the Framers would have limited the veto power if they had intended POTUS to have an ultimate veto through selective execution of laws.

Veto prevents the law from going on the books.

Unconstitutional 'veto' doesn't stop future administrations, it's much softer and merely reflects the president following his oath, but allows people to elect another executive who could then enforce the law. That is, veto power is for stopping constitutional or constitutional laws from going on the books. Refusing to execute doesn't strike from the books but allows execution of oath to follow the constitution.

Of course, I'm not sure your point about president not acting on good faith and thus refusing to execute constitutional laws -- in that case he could be impeached but if not it's a sign the whole system has broken down as at that point at least 2 of the 3 branches of government no longer respect the constitution.

>The Sedition Act expired as soon as he entered office, so I'm not sure how you figure he "blocked" it in any sense. Whatever Jefferson had to say about the sedition act was his right, but he didn't use any unconstitutional powers to work against it.

You're right that his time in office didn't actually block it, although Jefferson made clear that he believed the executive had the power to stop enforcing it, and had encouraged states to nullify it before he even took office and before it expired. I'll concede here the argument he personally was the one that blocked it was weak, although it clearly shows a founders take that the constitution permits the executive to follow the constitution instead of an unconstitutional legislation.

>You concede that POTUS have not stopped enforcement of the law entirely, which would be unconstitutional; but they have used persecutorial discretion to focus resources, which is constitutional.

If you prefer, you can switch to the Switchblade Act , which the federal courts have absolutely and unequivocally ruled has had the enforcement of the law "stopped entirely" (albeit in very twisted logic, they didn't count seizures that were then returned) for 10 years (Knife Rights v Garland). In fact the courts in that case basically found you couldn't even challenge a law that had been unenforced by the executive in 10 years, as they basically considered it as no one having standing as it basically doesn't exist as something jeopardizing anyone. Of course the main reason to challenge it is because it's unconstitutional (violates 2nd amendment) in the first place (thankfully executive took care of this before it went to courts, though would be nice if they'd double tap on it)!

I would think if the courts agreed with you, and the executive did have to enforce the laws, they couldn't have argued there is no standing to challenge the Switchblade Act, since the executive was bound to enforce it. The fact you can't challenge a law the executive has chosen not to enforce would seem to presume the courts have decided that the lack of standing stands on a legitimate machination of government, else it would be an absolutely preposterous premise that you won't be in jeopardy.