Keeping the Republic Blog

Presidential Signing Statements Revisited -- 4/30/06

The Boston Globe has an excellent article (Charlie Savage, Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws, 4/30/06) that speaks to a recurring theme we have noted in this blog over the last four months: the Bush administration’s efforts to shore up what they see as the weakened power of the presidency. (See KTR p. 341 and the What’s at Stake in Chapter 8.) The Globe article says that President Bush used signing statements to claim the power to disregard more than 750 laws in the five years since he took office, compared to the 232 statutes his father challenged in 4 years and the 140 signing statements Bill Clinton issued in his eight years in office.

Savage quotes Bruce Fein, a former deputy attorney general during the Reagan administration, on the effects Bush’s efforts are likely to have on the checks and balances in American government: “’This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy,’ Fein said. ‘There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power.’”

After you read the article, it might be worth reconsidering some questions we asked back in January, during the Alito hearings:

What should the limits be on the president’s power? The founders debated this issue, but came down on the side of a limited executive (KTR pp. 111-114); the Bush administration seems focused on expansion (KTR 319-320, 368; 340-341). What are the costs of expanded executive power? What are the advantages?

Fuel Prices and Press Secretaries -- 4/26/06

In the face of record high gas prices and blockbuster profits for the oil industry, but record low opinion ratings (he just hit 32% in one recent poll), President Bush announced yesterday several steps the administration would take to lower oil prices. (Jim VandeHei and Steven Mufson, Bush Calls for Probe of Rising Gas Prices, WaPo, 4/26/06.) These include temporarily stopping additions to the nation’s oil reserves and considering easing Environmental Protection Agency regulations to promote clean fuel. You can read about his plan in any major paper today. See the LA Times, however, for a concise explanation of Why Gas Prices Won’t Go Down (Elizabeth Douglass, April 26, 2006). Basically, the problem keeping prices high isn’t about low supply -- we have plenty of oil right now -- it is about concerns for the future, with an uncertain situation in the Middle East and a growing demand in India and China. As the article points out, the world’s energy crisis isn’t going to be solved by short-term remedies –- the best solutions are medium and long term. As we suggest in the What’s at Stake in Chapter 17 of KTR, such solutions are politically controversial in the United States and reveal deep seated ideological differences. USA Today does a nice job of detailing the efforts of past presidents to deal with the same issue. (Bush, Predecessors, Look for Response to Rising Oil Prices, 4/26/06.)

Also in the news this morning is the acceptance by Fox News commentator Tony Snow (a former speech writer for Bush’s father) of the White House Press Secretary job being vacated by Scott McClellan. (Jim Rutenberg, Fox Commentator to Join White House, Officials Say, NYT, 4/26/06.) Given Fox’s positive coverage of the Bush administration, this appointment has given rise to a variety of late night TV jokes about whether Snow will get back pay for his previous support for the president, but as libertarian blogger Andrew Sullivan points out, Snow has also been critical of Bush for expanding the size of the government and the budget. McClellan was kept on a pretty tight leash of White House officials but Snow has reportedly bargained for a voice in policy discussions as a part of his new job. It will be interesting to see whether that will free him to do more than repeat the canned statements of his predecessor. See KTR, p. 657, for a definition of the revolving door (a phenomenon Snow illustrates nicely) and pp. 668-669, for a discussion of news management in the Bush administration. Is Snow’s journalism background a help or a hindrance to him in his new job? Are there ethical issues involved?

All Shook Up – 4/19/06

The papers are abuzz this afternoon with the newly announced “staff shakeups” in the Bush administration. I won’t provide links since all the media are covering this and there is not much good analysis yet.

Here’s a summary: White House Chief of Staff Andy Card left his job a week or so ago, to be replaced by Joshua Bolten, then director of Management and Budget (who in turn was just replaced by former congressman Rob Portman). Yesterday White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that Bolten had suggested that any administration officials who were thinking about leaving do so, as changes were going to be made. This morning brought the news that McClellan himself is one of those changes, as well as Karl Rove, who continues as Deputy Chief of Staff but drops his role as policy advisor to concentrate on the November elections. The blogs are all atwitter with the questions of what the change in Rove’s status really means, and most conclude that it means nothing, but the War Room on the liberal online magazine Salon speculates that it could mean that Rove has lost his security clearance because of his role in the Plame leak.

The position about which there has been the most noise is the one with the least shaking up. Despite calls from a number of senior military officers for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Bush announced yesterday in typical Bush language that Rumsfeld is staying put. As reported by the AP:  

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president said testily. “But I'm the decider and I decide what's best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

For weeks now, fretful Republicans who fear Bush’s falling approval ratings will hurt them at the polls in November have been calling for changes in the White House, an infusion of new blood that will energize the administration. What are the most likely causes for Bush’s fall in the ratings? Are the personnel changes that have been announced so far likely to affect those factors?

Immigration and Presidential Leaking – 4/10/06

Sorry for the DeLay -- 4/6/06

I apologize to all for my recent absence from this site. As the editorial note posted tells you, I have been on the road a bit (I am on leave this semester to do some research for a book), but we have also been dealing with the loss of one beloved pet and the critical illness of another. Sometimes life just trips you up.

There are a couple of issues I’d like to discuss here, but I am going to divide them up over the next couple of days. Look for upcoming posts on immigration and the Massachusetts health care bill. Today we’ll talk about the announcement on Tuesday that Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who resigned that post when he was indicted last year, will resign from Congress and not seek reelection in November.

The news about DeLay came in a Time Magazine exclusive interview with Mike Allen, quickly followed by an announcement by the man himself and nonstop interviews and media coverage everywhere. DeLay says he is quitting to spare the Republican Party the possible loss of his seat and because the upcoming campaign would be incredibly nasty. But DeLay has survived and even flourished in nasty campaigns before. What else is going on here?

The crash in DeLay’s career has been sudden. Just last year he was universally hailed or hated as the most powerful man in the U.S. House, a person who had almost single-handedly changed the way Congress does business (see the discussion of the K Street project below, for example) and who was largely instrumental in fostering the strong partisanship that has characterized American legislative politics since the Clinton years (DeLay was a powerful force behind the Clinton impeachment, for instance). But his tribulations quickly piled up. First he himself was indicted on money laundering charges, for which he still faces a trial. Then two close friends and former staffers have been indicted as part of the investigation into Jack Abramoff, and some believe that investigators are closing in on DeLay as well. (Jonathan Weisman and Chris Cillizza, DeLay to Resign from Congress, WaPo, 4/4/06.) With polls showing him running 50/50 in his district, the possibility that the once invincible “Hammer,” as he was called, could lose the election became very real, prompting his decision to quit (though he says he still believes he could have won).

He says his future plans are still uncertain, though he speaks of becoming a national leader of the conservative movement. The future of the Republicans he leaves behind in Congress is unclear as well. With Bush’s approval ratings too low to provide cohesion, and the man who kept them in line for so long on his way out, Republicans are beginning to show divisions in what once seemed like an unshakable party bloc (Carl Hulse, Republicans Are Finding Their House Now Divided, NYT, 4/6/06) and Democrats are delighted to see their once formidable foes on the ropes. (Howard Kurtz, Three Cheers for DeLay, WaPo, 4/5/06.)

During the DeLay years, the Republicans were remarkably successful at changing the rules of American politics to advantage their party – from the K Street Project to the Texas redistricting that bolstered their majority in the 2004 elections. The Democrats are now starting to think that they may have a chance to take back the majority (though it is a long shot still - see for example this map), at which time, of course, they would try to change the rules back to benefit their party. If you remember the theme of KTR,  that politics is about who gets what and how they get it, and that controlling the rules of the game helps you determine who will win and who will lose, much of this battle for control of Congress makes sense. If you remember the old adage that power corrupts, then the fate of Tom Delay begins to make some sense too. The Democrats, who faced corruption in their own ranks during their majority, would do well to remember it too.

More to come in a day or so on immigration and health care.