Presidential Signing Statements: Preserving the Balance of Powers

Legal Group Faults Bush for Ignoring Parts of Bills

By ROBERT PEAR
New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 23 — The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.

In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.

These broad assertions of presidential power amount to a “line-item veto” and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto, the panel said.

In signing a statutory ban on torture and other national security laws, Mr. Bush reserved the right to disregard them.

The bar association panel said the use of signing statements in this way was “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.” From the dawn of the Republic, it said, presidents have generally understood that, in the words of George Washington, a president “must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.”

Much to the chagrin of the Times, I'm sure, as well as this extreme Left-wing group of "Legal Scholars," there is nothing unusual or remarkable on the use of the President's use of signing statements to exclude or call attention to provisions in laws passed by Congress which he feels are beyond the bounds of Congress' authority to regulate.

There is nothing new about the conflict between Congress and the President and the balance of powers between them. Periodically in our history an overzealous Congress has sought to rein in the powers of the President when they disagreed with the direction in which he was moving. Just as frequently, the Executive has strained against those reins, or simply ignored them when he felt Congress was interfering with the powers of the Presidency. These cases resolve themselves in the courts, which is as it should be.

There seems to be a belief in Congress, relatively recent in origin (probably began in the late 60's with President Nixon) that Congress was the first among equals. Aside from it's primacy in the articles of the Constitution, there is no evidence that our Founding Fathers intended that to be so. The powers of the three branches were laid out carefully so that they balanced each other thus insuring that no single branch could usurp governing authority.

For the Times to assign this ABA group anymore than passing authority or relevency merely demonstrates the extreme Left bias of the paper. No one in the real world believes that the ABA is anything but a legal hit-group for the Democrat Party.

Full Story: Restraining An Overzealous Congress

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