What is a Signing Statement?
The more I hear and read about signing statements, the more troubling the whole idea becomes. In essence, these signing statements seem to say the President is nullifying parts of laws passed by Congress.
Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.�
Further on, in Section 7 of that same article, it lays out very clearly that the President either approves legislation, signing it into law, or returns it with his objections to Congress where they have the option of reconsidering and passing it with a two thirds majority of both Houses. No where do I find anything about the President having the power to sign a law while setting aside parts of it as he deems appropriate.
Some of what I’ve read explains signing statements as the President’s interpretation of a bill declaring that one or more of the laws it creates are unconstitutional and therefore need not be obeyed. The American Bar Association called signing statements “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.�
That sounds right to me.
The Founding Fathers were all too aware of the problems inherent in having an all powerful king and they fashioned our Constitution in a way that placed checks and balances on each of the three branches of government so that no one branch would become powerful enough to continually override the others.
The more than 800 laws President Bush has challenged with signing statements sounds to me like a continual override of the legislative power of Congress. Not only has he greatly increased the use of this mechanism (issuing more than the combined total of all the Presidents before him) but he is changing the nature of its use.
An accepted and uncontroversial use of signing statements by past presidents has been to explain to the public what the likely effects of a bill will be and how that is consistent or inconsistent with the Administration’s views or programs.
A second and generally accepted use of Presidential signing statements is to direct Executive Branch officials how to interpret and apply the statues they administer. This falls within the Presidents constitutional authority to supervise and control the activity of subordinate officials within the Executive Branch.
But President Bush seems to use a signing statement as a line item veto. And the Supreme Court declared the line item veto unconstitutional when Clinton was President.
He is also furthering attempts (started in the Regan Administration), to use signing statements to create legislative history that could then be used by the courts to give weight to ascertaining the meaning of statutory language. That can be a very slippery slope because it virtually allows the President to speak for Congress instead of allowing Congress to speak for itself. Congress creates legislative history in committee reports, floor debates, and hearings and the President should not be allowed to reinterpret that record with signing statements.
It seems to be the nature of we mortals, that the more power we have the more we want and the more we tell ourselves we are entitled to. It’s called rationalization and it is the product of our adaptability which in turn, is a large part of our ability to survive. As with many things, it starts out as a good thing – the ability to survive – but like a coin, it has two sides. The other side is that it allows us to adapt to things that are not good or right, and it uses rationalization to put a good face on it. And we then easily reach the stage of believing that the end justifies the means.
It seems a good rule of thumb that when we are sure we know what is best for others; it is a pretty sure bet we really don’t.