Signing Statements and the Rollback of American Law
The Unilateral Presidency
By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO
In a refreshing investigative series in the Boston Globe from 2006, journalist Charlie Savage dropped a bombshell on the Bush administration. Reporting on Bush's use of "signing statements," Savage highlighted the president's long-standing contempt for Legislative authority. Since then, the story has generally been overlooked although it recently resurfaced when Bush issued another statement that he would disregard Congress's prohibition of permanent military bases in Iraq. The President's issuance of this signing statement is just one of hundreds of challenges he's made to national laws.
A signing statement, simply put, is an official announcement from the Executive--an attempt to alter the intent of a law by allowing the President to interpret its execution in any way he sees fit. While signing statements hold no official legal standing, the president acts as if they grant him the power to disregard segments of bills with which he disagrees. Since taking office, the Bush administration has issued over 150 signing statements, containing over 500 constitutional challenges, and questioning more than 1,100 provisions of national laws. This is a significant increase from years past. Former presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton issued over 300 such statements combined, while only 75 signing statements were issued in total from the early 1800s through the Carter Presidency.
Interpretive signing statements have received support from some legal scholars and officials associated with the administration, such as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and John Yoo of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council. The American Bar Association, the ACLU, and other legal scholars, however, have challenged the signing statements as unconstitutional and a violation of the principles of checks and balances and separation of powers. In response to Bush's circumvention of the military bases ban, Harvard Law Professor David Barron questioned the administration for "continuing to assert the same extremely aggressive conception of the president's unilateral power to determine how and when US force will be used abroad."
Some Democrats in Congress have also challenged the President's assumption that he can unilaterally interpret laws outside their original intent. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains: "I reject the notion in his signing statement that he can pick and choose which provisions of this law to executeHis job, under the Constitution, is to faithfully execute the law - every part of it--and I expect him to do just that."
Sadly, there's been little sustained effort on the part of the Legislative and Judicial branches to prohibit these attacks on the legal system. The few bills that have been presented in Congress seeking to prohibit signing statements have gone nowhere, ignored by the majority of Democrats and Republicans. The Supreme Court has also failed to rule on the constitutionality of the signing statements, contributing to the legal ambiguity surrounding the President's controversial actions.
A few examples of the President's signing statements provide a better picture of his contempt for the law:
http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio02292008.html
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