Congress vs. The President

by Conor Kenny — August 11, 2006 - 4:42pm
  • Topics: U.S. Congress, Democracy, U.S. Government
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    About two weeks ago, on July 26, 2006, the American Bar Association issued a report condemning President Bush's use of "signing statements." These statements are essentially a "P.S." written underneath his signature on a piece of legislation that states how he interprets and intends to enforce the law. (This is part of the Unitary Executive Theory.)

    The ABA is not happy about this. From the press release for the report:

    "Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush’s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers... To address these concerns, the task force urges Congress to adopt legislation enabling its members to seek court review of signing statements that assert the President’s right to ignore or not enforce laws passed by Congress, and urges the President to veto bills he feels are not constitutional."

    The ABA asked and it shall receive: two days later Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) filed a bill that would allow the House or Senate to file a lawsuit to have the Supreme Court rule on the constitutionality of signing statements.

    Here's where Congresspedia comes in. I called Sen. Specter's office and confirmed that while the bill has been referred to Specter's Senate Judiciary Committee, there has yet to be a hearing and no other Senators have signed up to be cosponsors. So, where do members of the Senate stand on Specter's bill? Citizen journalists, help us find out.

    So far, we've got supporting statements from Susan Collins (R-Maine), opposition from John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Jeff Sessions and ambivalence from John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Warner (R-Va.).

    Help us nail down where the rest of the Senate stands on this important issue by emailing me at Conor AT sourcewatch.org or by going to our page on presidential signing statements, clicking "edit", and entering it in yourself. In keeping with our policy of strict sourcing, only edit it yourself if you've got a verifiable, outside source. Above all, we want Congresspedia to be accurate.