Bush using a little-noticed strategy to alter the balance of power

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Fri, Jan. 06, 2006
Bush using a little-noticed strategy to alter the balance of power
BY RON HUTCHESON AND JAMES KUHNHENNKnight Ridder NewspapersWASHINGTON -

President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement - a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

Signing statements don't have the force of law, but they can influence judicial interpretations of a statute. They also send a powerful signal to executive branch agencies on how the White House wants them to implement new federal laws.
(snip/...)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13568402.htm
(Free registration required)

[slor]

1. Well, he did say it would be easier to rule as a dictator...

guess he decided to see how easy. Can there be any doubt that this maniac could be capable of stealing an election?

[rodeodance]

4. do you--or anyone have this quote>--Lets send to all Dems along with

this article.

[slor]

16. Here you go...

f this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
--President-Elect George W. Bush, CNN News, Aired December 18, 2000 - 12:00 p.m. ET
<http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html>

[rodeodance]

2. an article yesterday said that Alito was somehow involved in this

this new strategy.

[rodeodance]

3. looky what Bush did in 2003!!

....In 2003, lawmakers tried to get a handle on Bush's use of signing statements by passing a Justice Department spending bill that required the department to inform Congress whenever the administration decided to ignore a legislative provision on constitutional grounds.

Bush signed the bill, but issued a statement asserting his right to ignore the notification requirement.

[HuffleClaw]

12. he really has gone insane with power

its my guess that this power-madness is why he jumped up to proclaim, in regards to the domestic spying issue, 'i did it 30 times, and i'll do it again!'. he's probably simply amazed anyone has the chutzpah to challenge his god-given imperial authority.

[Evergreen Emerald]

5. Isn't that akin to executive authority on line-item veto?

And that law, if I am not mistaken, was deemed unconstitutional in the Clinton years.

[rodeodance]

6. No--in a line item veto--the person CRosses out figures/words/sentences.

Here--the President ADDs IN his own stuff.

[rodeodance]

7. Blumenthal had an excellant article on the use of this device by Bush

yesterday which I posted.


very well worth the read of the entire article.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0105-23.htm

Published on Thursday, January 5, 2006 by Salon.com

Bush's War on Professionals
The president is determined to stop whistle-blowers and the press from halting his administration's illegal, ever-expanding secret government. But it may be too late.

by Sidney Blumenthal
......

During his first term, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content. He has countermanded the legislative history, which legally establishes the foundation of their meaning, by executive diktat. In particular, he has rejected parts of legislation that he considered stepped on his power in national security matters. In effect, Bush engages in presidential nullification of any law he sees fit. He then acts as if his gesture supersedes whatever Congress has done.

Political scientist Phillip Cooper, of Portland State University in Oregon, described this innovative grasp of power in a recent article in the Presidential Studies Quarterly. Bush, he wrote, "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress." Moreover, these coups de main not only have overwhelmed the other institutions of government but have taken place almost without notice. "This tour de force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all."

Not coincidentally, the legal author of this presidential strategy for accreting power was none other than the young Samuel Alito, in 1986 deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Alito's view on unfettered executive power, many close observers believe, was decisive in Bush's nomination of him to the Supreme Court.

Last week, when Bush signed the military appropriations bill containing the amendment forbidding torture that he and Vice President Cheney had fought against, he added his own "signing statement" to it. It amounted to a waiver, authorized by him alone, that he could and would disobey this law whenever he chose. He wrote: "The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks." In short, the president, in the name of national security, claiming to protect the country from terrorism, under war powers granted to him by himself, would follow the law to the extent that he decided he would. ...........

[Evergreen Emerald]

10. but proclaiming he has the authority does not give him the authority

unless we continue to lay down and let him take it.

[NI4NI]

14. theoretically, after reading this article

the CIA agents who allowed themselves to be coerced into keeping quiet about what they knew to be true about no WMD's have as much American blood on their hands as BUSH and his neocons; And still now, without the balls or the patriotism, only anonymously do they tell Blumenthal. That's criminal
treason.

[teryang]

18. Great article! So much for George Tenet. Alito is dangerous.

The characterization of Tenet is spot on.

<Alito's view on unfettered executive power, many close observers believe, was decisive in Bush's nomination of him to the Supreme Court.>

He's the kind of jurist who enables dictatorship.

[meow2u3]

17. It's only unconstitutional when a Democratic president does it

It's OK if you're a REpunk, because repunks are above the law :sarcasm:

[rodeodance]

8. Lindsey Graham and Kennedy have good comments.

...Lawmakers from both parties have questioned Bush's assertion of his wartime authority.

"If you take this to its logical conclusion, because during war the commander in chief has an obligation to protect us, any statute on the books could be summarily waived," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"The Constitution says that if the president doesn't like it (a bill), he can veto it. And we have an opportunity to override the veto," Kennedy noted.

[rodeodance]

9. nominated

[HuffleClaw]

11. "Bush has used signing statements...

...on more than 500 legislative provisions."

holy hopping hellacious abuse of power batman!

seriously, that is some scary. he truly feels himself to be some sort of new american emperor. FIVE HUNDRED TIMES ??? and we're only learning about this NOW ??? what ELSE don't we know about his 'executive' powers ?

[rodeodance]

13. Kennedy: "an arrogance of power."

"He issues a signing statement that says he retains all of the inherent power that will permit him to go out and torture just the way they've gone ahead and tortured before," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "That process is an arrogance of power."

Congress has clashed with Bush over signing statements before. In 2002, lawmakers from both parties vigorously objected when Bush offered a narrow interpretation of whistleblower protections in legislation on corporate fraud. After a series of angry letters from Congress to the White House, the administration backed down.

But monitoring the implementation of new laws is a complicated task, especially when Bush is ambiguous about his intentions. Cooper said Bush's assertion of his constitutional authority in dealing with the torture ban is typical of his approach.

"It doesn't explicitly say what he's going to do or not do, but it gives him the authority to do whatever he wants to do," Cooper said. "The administration has clearly concluded that the Republican-dominated Congress is not prepared to force a confrontation on a lot of these issues."

[PATRICK]

15. I hear this may be due to a disability

in motor skills that prevent him from being able to cross his fingers.

[Coastie for Truth]

19. Signing statements are just the President playing lexicographer

...saying "Up means down and down means up, and left means right and right means left, and hot means cold, and cold means hot in this bill that I have just signed."

Some evidence of the law, but they can not detract from or change the "plain meaning" of the language of the law.

And, signing statements only come into play if the law is ambiguous on its face.

[Demeter]

20. He's TRYING To Change the Laws Congress Passed

but he hasn't got a leg to stand on. "Just because he says so" doesn't cut it. It's not a dictatorship--and we will summarily deal with dictators.