Al Gore on Bush’s “signing statements”

Excerpt from: “The Assault on Reason,” by Al Gore, pages 224-225

“One of President Bush’s most contemptuous and dangerous practices has been his chronic abuse of what are called “signing statements.” These are written pronouncements that the president issues upon signing a bill into law. Throughout our history, these statements have served a mainly ceremonial function, extolling the virtues of the legislation and thanking those figures responsible for enactment. On occasion, these statements have also included passages in which the president raises constitutional concerns with some provisions of the new law. What presidents have always avoided is delineating those provisions that the president simply disagrees with and announcing that the president will not comply with them. Obviously, such a device would be unconstitutional on its face.

The Constitution gives the president the choice of signing the law, vetoing a law – in which case the law does not go into effect unless a supramajority in both the House and the Senate override the veto – or refraining from signing the law – in which case it goes into effect without his signature after ten days (unless the Congress goes out of session during those ten days, in which case the law is negated by what is called a “pocket veto”). But those are the only provisions laid out in the Constitution. The president must either sign or veto each law that is presented to him by the congress. The president is not a member of the legislative branch and therefore is not entitled to pick apart all of the provisions of each law and decide for himself which provisions he will accept and which he will reject. Once the law has been passed by the Congress, he must either accept it or reject it in its entirety, as it is.

…. (Bush’s) abuses are so far beyond those of any of his predecessors that they represent a difference of kind as well as degree.

President Bill Clinton issued signing statements covering 140 laws over the eight years of his presidency, as compared with his predecessor, George H.W. Bush, who objected to 232 laws during his four years in office. President George W. Bush, by contrast, has issued more signing statements that all of his predecessors combined-challenging the constitutionality of more than 1,000 laws during his first six years in office.

The difference between the practice of President Clinton and that of President George W. Bush is not simply one of volume – though that alone is striking, particularly given that President Clinton faced a hostile and adversarial Congress dominated by the opposing political party while President Bush for the first six years faced a docile and supportive Congress. President Clinton’s signing statements were based on well-settled principles of constitutional law and were guided by a desire to allow the judiciary to resolve issues of constitutional interpretation. President Bush’s signing statements, however, rest on legal theories regarding his own power that are extreme and lacking in judicial support. In fact, his theory of his power is so vast that, in practice, it amounts to an assertion of power that is so obviously unconstitutional-a power to simply declare what provisions of law he will and will not comply with.”

…..(for example), a bipartisan majority in Congress recently passed a law covering the U.S. Postal Serviced that explicitly reinforced the terms of the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights and made it against the law for the president to open citizens’ mail without a warrant. But the president issued a signing statement at the time he signed the law emphasizing his own independent authority to order, without a warrant, that mail be opened for inspection.

The Assault on Reason, Al Gore, pages 224-226

http://www.algore.com/