As seen at TalkLeft, Stygius, and DailyKos, the Boston Globe ran an article on the President’s love of signing statements:
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.
Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ‘’signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.
The Globe also has on its site comparisons in the number of signing statements Bush Jr. has made (750+ in 5 years) to those made by Clinton (140 in 8 years) or Bush Sr. (232 in 4 years), as well as examples of some of these signing statements:
Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.
Bush’s signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ”as advisory in nature.”
As disturbed as I am to admit it, many of the signing statements highlighted by the Globe do make some amount of sense.
However, while I’m all for the idea of the President acting as a check and balance against the excesses and craziness arising from Congress’ ability to legislate…that’s what the veto is for. If a law is unconstitutional enough to need circumvention, it ought to be vetoed.
This dance of “sign it, pat the congresscritters on the back, send them away, and then nullify it” seems cowardly and sleazy.
True, many of these needing-to-be-defanged items are buried in larger pieces of legislation that are otherwise kosher (or as kosher as anything coming out of Congress is these days). However, I would argue that that is an indication of a need for line-item veto power. You accomplish about the same thing, in a much less two-faced manner.