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?