Anonymous ID: 6f1644 Jan. 15, 2020, 2:31 p.m. No.7823745   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>7823731

http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1974490,00.html

 

The rationale is fairly simple. The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often engraves the pens, which are then given as keepsakes to key proponents or supporters of the newly signed legislation. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used more than 75 pens (video footage can be found here, although camera cutaways make it hard to keep track) and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen also received pens for their aid in shuttling the bill through Congress. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill — which allowed Presidents to veto individual sections of legislation rather than the entire thing — to those most likely to appreciate the bill's impact: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

 

But how does a President even sign his name with so many pens? Does he print it? Does his signature come out looking disconnected and wobbly? What if he runs out of letters? "I've been practicing signing my name slowly," President Obama joked in January 2009 when he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — for which he used seven pens. President Kennedy had the process figured out: when he needed more letters, he wasted ink by spelling out his middle name and adding a flourish under his signature.