http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.3835:

It is a very short read for most of you. Ron Paul is wrong about many things, but he has this one right.

It seems very obvious now, also, that the so-called Department of Justice needs to be independent of the Executive or made, in some way, more responsive to the other branches of government and less a creature solely controlled by the Executive. When Bush says that the DOJ, as part of the Executive Branch, cannot be used to investigate the Executive, there is something wrong.

It is always possible that McCain’s would behave differently in office–I can’t deny that. Nevertheless, my preference would be that no one use the darn things period.

Mr Lybbert:
I don’t believe you are right about Obama leaving open the possibility of Bush-like signing statements. He uses nice, friendly phrases such as “intends to faithfully execute the law”, “clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws”, “not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions”. As such he does seem to have soem sort of idea as to what is unconstitutional and what isn’t.

Regards.

I haven’t been able to figure out President Bush’s reliance on signing statements. It seems to me that if he disagrees with a bill that he doesn’t plan to veto he ought to not sign the bill, allow it to become law, and then issue an executive order regarding that bill. In effect, this would do the same thing the signing statements do but at the same time more clearly oppose the parts of the law the President doesn’t like. Executive orders are legally binding on people who work for the executive branch, but nobody else.

Additionally, the Constitution gives Congress some ability to determine rules and procedures for federal courts. That includes what gets called law. It seems to me that Congress could always create a rule that signing statements are not “law” and should not be referred to in court disputes.

The question that was being answered was specifically about whether the candidates would use signing statements, and so in those terms, McCain’s is the only constitutionally defensible position. You are reading too much into the discussion.

Now, whether McCain’s overall approach is appropriate, that is a another matter, but the discussion at hand is rather narrow.

The statement does go straight to the point – much as the “You are either with us or against us” statement. (Which is, coincidentally, about as patriotic as you can get, right?)

Regards.

While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.

Using a signing statement to “clarify his understanding of an ambiguous law” seems to be a reasonable exercise of the executive’s discretion, particularly when it comes to contradictory or vague laws.

–|PW|–

Not that divided government in any way justifies the use of this ‘para-constitutional’ device, but we might expect it to make its use more common. That Bush II has used it so extensively with Republican Congresses really drives home the extent to which his presidency–and his judicial appointments–represents a fundamentally different model of presidentialism: One in which Congress only sets broad parameters, and the executive remains free to implement and interpret as it sees best. (I have called this the Latin American model.)