Opening sentence from an editorial in today's NY Times:
Over 212 years, 42 presidents issued "signing statements" objecting to a grand total of 600 provisions of new laws. George W. Bush has done that more than 800 times in just over five and a half years in office.
3 comments:
You've probably seen it on the news, but the American Bar Assoc. just did a study of the "signing statements" and came out with four recommendations.
Clinton signed 140 of these and as you point out Bush has signed over 800 so far. The idea is that the President signs a bill and then issues a statement that he doesn't plan to enforce that law because he either disagrees with it or part of it or will not enforce it because he believes it to be unconstitutional.
Legislative critics point out that the executive is trying to usurp the powers of the legislative and judicial branches. Only the judicial branch is empowered to declare a law passed by Congress unconstitutional. The President does not have this power in the Constitution. When Congress passes a law the President only has two options. He can sign it, or he can return it to Congress with his list of disagreements. He does not have the power to choose not to enforce it or to only enforce the parts that he agrees with. The President, unlike many governors, does not have a line item veto in fact or by inaction. There is a bill pending before the Congress to allow the legislative branch or the judicial branch or a private citizen to bring an action against the President in a court of law if he fails to enforce a law passed by Congress.
Strict constructionists arise! We are supposed to have co-equal branches of govt with one checking the other and a power grab by the executive branch is not allowed under the Constitution.
Air America has been all over this this week.
Strict constructionists, like ... Scalia and Thomas? ;^)
Good points, TC.
I did see something about the ABA's recommendations, but I guess I've given up hope that anything like that pierces the bubble of the Oval Office anymore.
The rightwingnuts are no doubt already leaping on Clinton's number, which is large, compared to history. But one must remember that he had a Congress controlled by the opposing party for the last six years of his term. Bush has had lapdogs for his entire tenure so far, and he still wants to take the ball away from them.
It's probably also worth pointing out (the following is quoted from the same editorial as mentioned in the original post):
"Most presidents used signing statements to get legal objections on the record for judges to consider in any court challenge.
...
[U]nder this president, all laws are screened by Mr. Cheney?s staff for violations of the unitary executive theory. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton had the Justice Department report constitutional concerns about new laws to the White House."
(Me again): It seems truly paranoid of Cheney to handle this sort of thing, when one considers the loyalty of the current head of the Justice Dept, Alberto Gonzales, or for that matter, John Ashcroft in the first term.
Or I can be paranoid, and argue that Cheney is being a control freak about this because he views himself as the "unitary executive."
Nah, that's not paranoia. Everyone already knows it's the truth.
Argh. I hate that the Times uses those non-standard apostrophes.
Well, at least the question mark (Cheney?s) suggest that I faithfully copied the excerpt.
Stupid Microsoft non-standard character sets!
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