"Alito Once Made Case For Presidential Power
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2006; A11
As a young Justice Department lawyer, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. tried to help tip the balance of power between Congress and the White House a little more in favor of the executive branch.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration, like other White Houses before and after, chafed at the reality that Congress's reach on the meaning of laws extends beyond the words of statutes passed on Capitol Hill. Judges may turn to the trail of statements lawmakers left behind in the Congressional Record when trying to glean the intent behind a law. The White House left no comparable record.
In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.
Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."
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The Bush administration "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress," Cooper wrote in the September issue. "This tour d' force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/01/AR2006010100788_pf.htmlAlito foes consider presidential powers the defining issue
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And this week, after Bush contended that he could waive the torture ban to protect national security, the three GOP senators who sponsored the law -- including Judiciary Committee member Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina -- condemned the president's view of his powers.
Bush asserted that he could waive the torture restrictions in a ''signing statement," an official document recording a president's legal interpretation of a new law. Bush had resisted the torture restrictions, but Congress approved them by such a large majority that he could not veto the bill.
In the past, presidents rarely issued such legal statements when signing bills. But in 1986, when Alito was working for former attorney general Edwin Meese III, the future nominee proposed that President Reagan issue signing statements more frequently.
Alito contended that courts sometimes research congressional statements and reports when trying to interpret the intent of an ambiguous law. Alito proposed that the more frequent issuing of signing statements by presidents would ''increase the power of the executive to shape the law" by leaving a record of the president's view. ''Since the president's approval is just as important as that of the House or Senate, it seems to follow that the president's understanding of the bill should be just as important as that of Congress," wrote Alito.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/01/06/alito_foes_consider_presidential_powers_the_defining_issue/?page=2Knight-Ridder:
Bush using a little-noticed strategy to alter the balance of power
By Ron Hutcheson and James KuhnhennKnight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.
Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement - a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.
In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.
"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."
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In some cases, Bush bluntly informs Congress that he has no intention of carrying out provisions that he considers an unconstitutional encroachment on his authority.
"They don't like some of the things Congress has done so they assert the power to ignore it," said Martin Lederman, a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. "The categorical nature of their opposition is unprecedented and alarming."
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They may soon have an ally on the Supreme Court. As a Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote a 1986 memo outlining plans for expanded use of presidential signing statements.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13568438.htm
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