How bush circumvents the constitutional obligations when signing bills. This alone is grounds for impeachment! Congress Snivels While Bush Breaks Laws!
Presidential signing statements are old news to anyone who has served in the White House counsel's office. Presidents have long used them to add their two cents when a law passed by Congress has provisions they do not like, yet they are not inclined to veto it. Nixon's statements, for example, often related to spending authorization laws which he felt were excessive and contrary to his fiscal policies.
In this column, I'll take a close look at President Bush's use of signing statements. I find these signing statements are to Bush and Cheney's presidency what steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger's body building. Like Schwarzenegger with his steroids, Bush does not deny using his signing statements; does not like talking about using them; and believes that they add muscle.
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But like steroids, signing statements ultimately lead to serious trouble.
Relying On Command, Rather Than Persuasion
Phillip Cooper is a leading expert on signing statements. His 2002 book, By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action, assesses the uses and abuses of signing statements by presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Cooper has updated his material in a recent essay for the Presidential Studies Quarterly, to encompass the use of signing statements by now-President Bush as well.
By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statements in 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions of legislation that became law.
That number may be approaching 600 challenges by now. Yet Bush has not vetoed a single bill, notwithstanding all these claims, in his own signing statements, that they are unconstitutional insofar as they relate to him.
Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law.
President Bush and the attorneys advising him may also anticipate that the signing statements will help him if and when the relevant laws are construed in court - for federal courts, depending on their views of executive power, may deem such statements relevant to their interpretation of a given law. After all, the law would not have passed had the President decided to veto it, so arguably, his view on what the law meant ought to (within reason) carry some weight for the court interpreting it. This is the argument, anyway.


Bush has quietly been using these statements to bolster presidential powers. It is a calculated, systematic scheme that has gone largely unnoticed (even though these statements are published in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents) until recently, when President Bush's used a signing statement to attempt to nullify the recent, controversial McCain amendment regarding torture, which drew some media attention.
Pumping Up the Bush Presidency With Signing Statements
Generally, Bush's signing statements tend to be brief and very broad, and they seldom cite the authority on which the president is relying for his reading of the law. None has yet been tested in court. But they do appear to be bulking up the powers of the presidency. Here are a few examples:
Suppose a new law requires the President to act in a certain manner - for instance, to report to Congress on how he is dealing with terrorism. Bush's signing statement will flat out reject the law, and state that he will construe the law "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."
The upshot? It is as if no law had been passed on the matter at all.
Or suppose a new law suggests even the slightest intrusion into the President's undefined "prerogative powers" under Article II of the Constitution, relating to national security, intelligence gathering, or law enforcement. Bush's signing statement will claim that notwithstanding the clear intent of Congress, which has used mandatory language, the provision will be considered as "advisory."
The upshot? It is as if Congress had acted as a mere advisor, with no more formal power than, say, Karl Rove - not as a coordinate and coequal branch of government, which in fact it is.
As Phillip Cooper observes, the President's signing statements are, in some instances, effectively rewriting the laws by reinterpreting how the law will be implemented. Notably, Cooper finds some of Bush's signing statements - and he has the benefit of judging them against his extensive knowledge of other President's signing statements -- "excessive, unhelpful, and needlessly confrontational."
The Constitutional and Practical Problems With Bush's Use of Signing Statements
Given the incredible number of constitutional challenges Bush is issuing to new laws, without vetoing them, his use of signing statements is going to sooner or later put him in an untenable position. And there is a strong argument that it has already put him in a position contrary to Supreme Court precedent, and the Constitution, vis-à-vis the veto power.
Bush is using signing statements like line item vetoes. Yet the Supreme Court has held the line item vetoes are unconstitutional. In 1988, in Clinton v. New York, the High Court said a president had to veto an entire law: Even Congress, with its Line Item Veto Act, could not permit him to veto provisions he might not like.
The Court held the Line Item Veto Act unconstitutional in that it violated the Constitution's Presentment Clause. That Clause says that after a bill has passed both Houses, but "before it become[s] a Law," it must be presented to the President, who "shall sign it" if he approves it, but "return it" - that is, veto the bill, in its entirety-- if he does not.
Following the Court's logic, and the spirit of the Presentment Clause, a president who finds part of a bill unconstitutional, ought to veto the entire bill -- not sign it with reservations in a way that attempts to effectively veto part (and only part) of the bill. Yet that is exactly what Bush is doing. The Presentment Clause makes clear that the veto power is to be used with respect to a bill in its entirety, not in part.
The frequency and the audacity of Bush's use of signing statements are troubling. Enactments by Congress are presumed to be constitutional - as the Justice Department has often reiterated. For example, take what is close to boilerplate language from a government brief (selected at random): "It is well-established that Congressional legislation is entitled to a strong presumption of constitutionality. See United States v. Morrison ('Every possible presumption is in favor of the validity of a statute, and this continues until the contrary is shown beyond a rational doubt.')."
Bush's use of signing statements thus potentially brings him into conflict with his own Justice Department. The Justice Department is responsible for defending the constitutionality of laws enacted by Congress. What is going to happen when the question at issue is the constitutionality of a provision the President has declared unconstitutional in a signing statement?
Does the President's signing statement overcome the presumption of constitutionality? I doubt it. Will the Department of Justice have a serious conflict of interest? For certain, it will.
Should thus Congress establish its own non-partisan legal division, not unlike the Congressional Reference Service, to protect its interests, since the Department of Justice may have conflicts? It's something to think about.
These are just a few practical and constitutional problems that arise when a president acts as if there is his government, and then there is the Congress' government. Signing statements often ignore the fact the only Congress can create all the departments and agencies of the Executive Branch, and only Congress can fund these operations.
And the power to create and fund is also, by implication, the power to regulate and to oversee. Congress can, to some extent, direct how these agencies will function without infringing on presidential power.
Impact Of Presidential Signing Statements
The immediate impact of signing statements, of course, is felt within the Executive Branch: As I noted, Bush's statements will likely have a direct influence on how that branch's agencies and departments interpret and enforce the law.
It is remarkable that Bush believes he can ignore a law, and protect himself, through a signing statement. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060113.html - 51k - 51k

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Wow Bush has breached more Constitutional protections than FDR and Lincoln?.....pure sophistry!
Total delusional fantasy: ignoring historical precedent in a desperate attempt to smear POTUS. Juvenile, IMO

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Really Wavels?
Read the patriot act in it’s entirety and you will see that it violates 6 amendments of the US Constitution that I can think of off the top of my head.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

Yes, really Dank….there are very few , if any, adjudicated violations of any US citizen’s rights via the dread Patriot Act.
Please specify the many abuses about which you are so concerned, and we will then compare these to those of FDR and Lincoln. It appears you lack all historical perspective.
The Patriot Act is a good thing.
Obviously you do not see a serious threat from our Islamic pals.
Bush is gone in two years, it looks like he is gonna play nice with Dems a little more now!

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If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
~ Frank Zappa ~

Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it.
~George Bernard Shaw~

Wow another fascist who likes the patriot act. He'd better hope they don't see him as a threat to POTUS or their Plutocracy, a lifetime of being ferried between foriegn prisons and never getting a trial, might change his mind!

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Hahaha ... Wavels speaks in support of the Patriot Act and that makes him a fascist? Med, your arrogance knows no bounds.

Vi

PS: Have you found the clause in the Constitution that hands over the power to the federal government to PROVIDE for the welfare of the citizens yet?

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

So what you are saying is that you do not support certain ideas in the constitution?
Did you know that there are abridgements of the 1st amendment?
Did you know that there are provisions in the Patriot Act that would take away 2nd Amendment rights?
Also there are clear violations of the 4th Amendment, you know that little thing about performing a search without a warrant?
Also since the Patriot Act you no have the rights granted under the 5th Amendment, that’s right according to the Patriot Act if questioned by the feds you have to incriminate yourself.
Also it violates the 6th Amendment, you that little thing about Due Process and the right to a speedy trial?
Also it violates the 8th Amendment, you know that little thing about cruel and unusual punishment?
And above all it violates the 9th Amendment. Which reads like this:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Did you also know that the Patriot Act wasn't even needed, Everything in it is covered by the RICO Act.

Then you have the balls to say that maybe I do not realize the threat from my Islamic friends?
Let me tell you something, do you know why it all started in the first place?
According to the Koran, Muslims are the only one allowed to defend Islamic countries. You can think our President’s Daddy for that one, we went into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and defended those countries against Saddam. According to Islamic Law it was not our place to do so. It was things like this that had angered and wakened such Monsters Like Osama Bin Laden. According to the Koran non-muslims are not allowed to set foot on Islamic land.
If we got ourselves out of those countries I’m 75% sure they would leave us alone. ( guess I mis-spent my youth smoking weed and reading religious texts)

Also on historical perspective…. I got strait “A”s in History. And I know that Lincoln and FDR did things that violated the constitution, but it doesn’t make what they did right.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

Dank ...

Here's the Patriot Act. http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

Would you point out where your above assertions have come from? Thanks ...



Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

I will vi as long as you give me week to do so, it is a long document and I will have to read through it.
Deal?

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn

But while you are waiting here is some lite reading for you.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1184

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/docs/USA_PATRIOT_ACT.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

http://www.cit.cornell.edu/policy/PatriotAct/present.html

http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31377.pdf

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html

http://www.epic.org/events/release102605.pdf

http://bingaman.senate.gov/news/stlvrecord.cfm?id=252531

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.06D.JVB.Patriot.htm

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17203leg20030214.html

http://www.infowars.com/print_resolution.html

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/cat_patriot_act.html

http://beautifulhorizons.typepad.com/weblog/2004/06/bush_to_the_us_.html

http://www.rense.com/general59/newsgatheringisillegal.htm

http://www.archipelago.org/vol6-2/feingold.htm

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3470


This is just to show a few links that alreay point out some violationd.

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The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. United State Constitution, Art. I Sec. 9 Par. 2

"Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism" -- Howard Zinn