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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: combjelly who wrote (303258)9/15/2006 1:54:59 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 1570975
 
But no other president has used signing statements to get around those disputes.

I'm fairly sure that's not true, although I think it is likely that no other president has used such signing statements as often.

The signing statements have no legal force. They are the equivalent of a speech saying "this law is unconstitutional" or "this law doesn't respect the powers given to the president by the constitution". There really isn't anything special about the objection coming in the form of a signing statement.

The reason why some of the bills aren't vetoed is likely that some of them are bills funding major parts of the government or are otherwise bills that are very difficult to veto because of provisions beyond the specific issue the president objects to. Still if the constitutional objection is serious I would in principle say the right thing to do is to veto them. (Of course if the veto is overruled your back to square one)

Looking around a bit on the internet I see that the practice was rare before Reagan, but that Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton have used such signing statements. Apparently Bush II has used them more often than any of the other presidents, maybe even more than all of them put together. I haven't found definitive totals for the other presidents. I found only their total signing statements, not how many dealt with separation of powers or other constitutional objections.

Here is a memo from the Clinton justice department defending such signing statements.

usdoj.gov
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