A “Signing Statement” is a written comment issued by a President at the time of
signing legislation
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Presidential Signing Statements
Tags: signing, statements on 2007-04-17 -All Annotations (0) -About
more fromwww.presidency.ucsb.edu
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Several sources trace “signing statements” back to James Monroe
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Bill Clinton issued many more signing statements. The controversy is
about the kind of signing statements Bush has issued
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http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm
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We believe that such statements may on appropriate occasions perform useful and
legally significant functions. These functions include (1) explaining to the
public, and particularly to constituencies interested in the bill, what the
President believes to be the likely effects of its adoption, (2) directing
subordinate officers within the Executive Branch how to interpret or administer
the enactment, and (3) informing Congress and the public that the Executive
believes that a particular provision would be unconstitutional in certain of its
applications, or that it is unconstitutional on its face, and that the provision
will not be given effect by the Executive Branch to the extent that such
enforcement would create an unconstitutional condition -
These functions must be carefully distinguished from a much more controversial
-- and apparently recent -- use of Presidential signing statements, i.e.,
to create legislative history to which the courts are expected to give some
weight when construing the enactment. In what follows, we outline the rationales
for the first three functions, and then consider arguments for and against the
fourth function.(2) The Appendix to the
memorandum surveys the use of signing statements by earlier Presidents and
provides examples of such statements that were intended to have legal
significance or effects. -
A third function, more controversial than either of the two considered above, is
the use of signing statements to announce the President's view of the
constitutionality of the legislation he is signing. This category embraces at
least three species: statements that declare that the legislation (or relevant
provisions) would be unconstitutional in certain applications; statements that
purport to construe the legislation in a manner that would "save" it from
unconstitutionality; and statements that state flatly that the legislation is
unconstitutional on its face. Each of these species of statement may include a
declaration as to how -- or whether -- the legislation will be enforced -
If the President may properly decline to enforce a law, at least when it
unconstitutionally encroaches on his powers, then it arguably follows that he
may properly announce to Congress and to the public that he will not
enforce a provision of an enactment he is signing. If so, then a signing
statement that challenges what the President determines to be an
unconstitutional encroachment on his power, or that announces the President's
unwillingness to enforce (or willingness to litigate) such a provision, can be a
valid and reasonable exercise of Presidential authority. -
The contrary view -- that it is the President's constitutional duty not
to sign legislation that he believes is unconstitutional -- has been advanced on
occasion -
Many Presidents have used signing statements to make substantive legal,
constitutional or administrative pronouncements on the bill being signed.
Although the recent practice of issuing signing statements to create
"legislative history" remains controversial, the other uses of Presidential
signing statements generally serve legitimate and defensible purposes.
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President's Statement on Signing of H.R. 2863, the "Department of Defense, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006"
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President's
Statement on Signing of H.R. 2863, the "Department of Defense, Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations to Address Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and
Pandemic Influenza Act, 2006
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FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration
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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. -
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. -
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 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. -
by Congress are presumed to be constitutional
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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 -
It is remarkable that Bush believes he can ignore a law, and protect himself,
through a signing statement. Despite the McCain Amendment's clear anti-torture
stance, the military may feel free to use torture anyway, based on the
President's attempt to use a signing statement to wholly undercut the bill.
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Signing statement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States
upon the signing of a bill into law -
Signing statements do not appear to have legal force by themselves. As a
practical matter, they may give notice of the way that the Executive intends to
implement a law, which may make them more significant than the text of the law
itself -
The first president to issue a signing
statement was James
Monroe.[5] Until the 1980s, with some exceptions, signing statements were
generally triumphal, rhetorical, or political proclamations and went mostly
unannounced. Until Ronald
Reagan became President, only 75 statements had been issued. Reagan and his
successors George H.
W. Bush and Bill
Clinton have produced 247 signing statements among the three of them. By the
end of 2004, George W.
Bush had issued over 108 signing statements containing more than 505
constitutional challenges. [6] As of October 4, 2006, he had signed 134
signing statements challenging 810 federal laws -
If the President may properly decline to enforce a law, at least when it
unconstitutionally encroaches on his powers, then it arguably follows that he
may properly announce to Congress and to the public that he will not enforce a
provision of an enactment he is signing. If so, then a signing statement that
challenges what the President determines to be an unconstitutional encroachment
on his power, or that announces the President's unwillingness to enforce (or
willingness to litigate) such a provision, can be a valid and reasonable
exercise of Presidential authority -
There is an ongoing controversy concerning the extensive use of signing
statements to modify the meaning of laws by President George W. Bush. In July 2006, a task force of
the American Bar Association described the
use of signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws as
"contrary to the rule of law
and our constitutional system of separation of
powers".[
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