Signing Statements

I posted earlier about thinking I heard a veiled reference to signing statements in the State of the Union address.   Looking through the text of the speech, I appear to have been in error:

The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks, special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute without discussion or debate. Last year I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote.

Unfortunately, neither goal was met. So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I’ll send it back to you with my veto. And tomorrow I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, the Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.

(Emphasis mine)

I’ve become too cynical, perhaps.   I can respect the issuance of an executive order against earmark expenditures.  Whether it will have teeth or be enforced, remains to be seen.

(*yawn*  Is it January 20th yet?)

Was it me, or was the State of the Union speech rather uninspiring, if not boring?

Granted, the talk on stopping earmarks sounded interesting and promising…although his veiled promise to use signing statements as part of his strategy to stop them sounded like an ominous way to achieve back-door legitimization of his favorite trick.

As for the rest…didn’t they seem to mostly be the same old unfulfilled proposals?   (Well, with the exception of the monologue on the stimulus package, the substance of which isn’t particularly new.)

Just before the end of the year, I observed that Bush’s pocket veto of a defense spending bill due to its exposure of the current Iraqi regime to lawsuits in the U.S. for Saddam’s actions seemed a little fishy, given that the Senate was still technically in session.

An editorial in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times goes into a little more detail as to the weirdness, treating it also as yet another attempt of the Bush administration to expand the power of the White House:

In this case, Bush tried to have it both ways. He pocket vetoed the bill as if Congress were entirely out of session — but then he did, in fact, return it to Congress by sending it and an outline of his objections to the House clerk. He did so, according to his veto message, “to leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed.”

If this all sounds like constitutional arcania, consider the outcome if Bush’s faux pocket veto stands unchallenged: Presidents would have absolute veto power any time Congress is not actually in session, bestowing on the chief executive the very authority the founders sought to deny the office. And why did Bush use this veto gambit now? Maybe because the bill in question passed by veto-proof margins.

Regardless of the motive, the Constitution does not allow presidents to pick the kind of veto they wish to use, and it certainly does not condone a pocket veto just because an override is likely. The existing regular veto is plenty potent, and Congress cannot be denied its constitutional right to review vetoes as long as bill return is possible. Congress should do what it did before: treat Bush’s action as a return veto because the bill was returned. And presidents should curb the impulse to play fast and loose with constitutional powers.

Hear, hear!

I still say that if Bush really believed his signing statements have meaning, this would have been one of those bills that such a tactic would be more reasonable.

Ah, if only we had the line-item veto….

Seen in the Boston Globe:

President Bush this month issued his first signing statement since the Democratic takeover of Congress, reserving the right to bypass 11 provisions in a military appropriations bill under his executive powers.[...]

[Bush] challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy’s Pacific fleet.

“The Act contains certain provisions identical to those found in prior bills passed by the Congress that might be construed to be inconsistent with my Constitutional responsibilities,” Bush’s statement says.

Even though the President has finally found his veto pen when faced by a Democratic Congress, he still seems to be looking for ways to weasel around legislation.