View the original ABA REPORT re presidential signing statements

[TaleWgnDg]

View the original ABA REPORT re presidential signing statements

REPORT

The preservation of liberty requires that
the three great departments of power
should be separate and distinct.
– James Madison, Federalist Papers, No. 47.
I. INTRODUCTION

On April 30, 2006, Charlie Savage, a respected veteran reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote a lengthy article on the use of presidential “signing statements” in which he reported that “President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.”1 Savage wrote:

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass
laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress,
upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is
clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a
duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has
repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is
unconstitutional.

Id. The Savage articles created a major national controversy, with the use – and, as some charged, the abuse – of signing statements drawing both severe critics and staunch defenders, with dozens of newspaper editorials2 and op-ed pieces published.

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, charged
that congressional legislation “doesn't amount to anything if the president can say, 'My
constitutional authority supersedes the statute.' And I think we've got to lay down the gauntlet

______________________________

1 See Charlie Savage, Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws, BOSTON GLOBE, April 30, 2006, at
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/Washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_
of_laws/.
2 See, e.g., Veto? Who Needs a Veto?, Editorial, NEW YORK TIMES, May 5, 2006 at
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/opinion/05fri1.html?th&emc=th; A White House power
grab, Editorial, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, June 12, 2006, at
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/06/12/EDGMSJB0EJ1.DTL;
Signing statements an abuse of power, Editorial, ASBURY PARK PRESS, June 6, 2006, at
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060606/OPINION/606060313/1032.


. . . more at . . . http://www.abanet.org/media/docs/signstatereport.pdf (.pdf format, AdobeReader(R) required).

(If the hyperlinks in the (above) footnotes are broken, then please go to the .pdf article for unbroken hyperlinks. -- TaleWgnDg)

.

Read the entire American Bar Association (ABA) Report re presidential signing statements. Why get it second-hand through the news media? Keep informed, fully and accurately informed, by reading documentation directly from the source.

Enjoy!

.