Signing Statements WTF? How can they be legal?

[panader0]

How can the pres just "sign" something and have that negate a law passed by congress? Have other pres' done that too? Like Annabanana said in an earlier post, signing statements make congress useless. (paraphrasing)

[Gregorian]

1. I've read that they're illegal. But there isn't agreement on that.

And I think it was the Bar association of lawyers saying it.

They aren't legal.

Someone will correct me, no doubt.

Here's one quote-

By declining to veto bills, and instead attaching signing statements challenging laws passed by Congress, he has violated Article 1, Section 7 and Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. These articles of the Constitution dictate that the president has the option of signing or vetoing a bill, and upon signing the bill to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

From http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=340571&rel_no=5&back_url=


Here's another Conyers panel- http://www.wikiprotest.com/index.php?title=House_panel_will_probe_president's_use_of_bill-signing_statements

[Kagemusha]

3. More technically, signing statements aren't laws, in and of themselves.

Which is great until you realize that they might as well be laws. Then, if everyone else just allows them to act as the law of the land, they basically are.

[Kagemusha]

2. I'm not sure I should really go explaining this again but...

Bush can order the executive branch to ignore a law he feels is unconstitutional, yes. He just decides more laws and more aspects of laws are unconstitutional than pretty much any president ever has claimed. (Others, like Nixon, just didn't bother claiming much specifically and just said, if the President does it, it is legal, which is, much of the time, what Bush is arguing as well, but more bluntly and boldly and in many more specific cases.) In doing this, Bush has made an extreme act common to the point of being ignored by the media.

But it's important to note that the law isn't negated. It does, yes, make Congress rather useless, but that's because Congress has been sitting on its fat ass doing nothing to enforce its will using the tools at its disposal.

[MrModerate]

4. I think you might have to go on explaining the extremism . . .

Of Bush's use of the technique, because every time I hear even a cogent description, steam begins to shoot out of my ears and I can't hear the rest of the explanation because my head is shrieking like a teakettle.

I think many people experience this.

[Kagemusha]

8. You have my sympathy.

This is one of those things where having it calmly explained to you tends to just tick you off even more...

Anyway, yeah, basically, when push comes to shove, the administration's view is that the US is a battlefield and Bush has full war powers that he can apply at moments of his choosing, a sort of selective martial law that allows him to ignore constitutional protections that can be waived in wartime because.. it's war, the US is under invasion from Al Qaeda cells and so on, and Bush requires unlimited powers to deal with the... long-term emergency.

But the point is, while the signing statements THEMSELVES are legal - because they represent Bush's opinion, not a new issuance of law - the governments ACTIONS may be found highly illegal if they occur in line with the signing statement and are not well grounded in constitutional law.

Some of them are. Some of them are legit. Bush just pushes it so far past the legit stuff that it's a mess of gray.

[MrModerate]

10. Now you've raised a question . . .

Are the Bushies maintaining that the unprecendented extent to which he uses signing statements is because he has heightened powers as a "war president?"

That specious argument is actually helpful going forward because -- under any rational definition of the term -- we are not in a "war" at all (outside the borders of Iraq), and future presidents' abuse of signing statements to frustrate Congress' intent is likely to be seriously constrained because of Bushian overreaching. Being a "checks and balances" kind of guy, that gives me hope.

[Kagemusha]

11. Yeah, the "long war" is the real justification, that's why "the US is a battlefield"

(words of current deputy AG Clement, actually). Put another way... the administration is not using any rational definition of the term, but that's not stopping them. It's not stopping them at all. And so far, the courts have still shown great deference to the claims of the President because.. well, Congress hasn't said no has it? The court is weakest when Congress makes no effort to reject a President's claims of war powers, and that's the trump card that the DoJ has used in all its legal arguments. We're at war, so don't ask questions.

And we're at war on US soil because Al Qaeda has 'invaded' us.

[NanceGreggs]

5. Not to worry ...

The GOP will give you a complete explanation as to why signing statements are illegal - the minute there's a Democratic president.

[pinto]

6. Here's a 1993 USDOJ memorandum re: signing statements.

Looks as if the issue is somewhat clouded, yet historically used with some self-limiting discretion by previous presidents.

-------------------------------------------

THE LEGAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PRESIDENTIAL
SIGNING STATEMENTS

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.

November 3, 1993

MEMORANDUM FOR BERNARD N. NUSSBAUM,
COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT

This memorandum provides you with an analysis of the legal significance of Presidential signing statements. It is addressed to the questions that have been raised about the usefulness or validity of a such statements. 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.(1)

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.

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm

[annabanana]

7. When previous Presidents issued these things, it was to

note their difference of opinion. They were not declaring that they wouldn't obey or enforce those laws. As usual Idiot Boy is using them as an excuse to do exactly what he wants, how he wants, when he wants, with no regard to legality whatsoever...

[onenote]

9. not so

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm

the difference is that chimpy has done it more often, more aggressively, and with less sound basis in constitutional law

[Kagemusha]

12. Well said.

But that's always what this type of ruler does. Takes every inch ever given to everyone else and takes a mile past that.

[lapislzi]

13. Who will apply the law to the president?

Of course they're illegal. But who will uphold the law? The checks and balances have been bought, paid for, neutered. There is no one.

No Congress.

No Supreme Court.

No Justice Department.

Who?