President Bush breaks laws; Post write-up on page A4

By: Gustavus
Published On: 6/19/2007 8:54:40 AM

President Bush's use of "signing statements" first became widely known after Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe wrote a series of articles on them.  (See, e.g., this article from April, 2006.  For some recent discussions of signing statements see Glen Greenwald's columns in Salon, e.g this one.) 

In a nutshell, Bush claims to be exempt from requirements of new laws if he believes they somehow violate his authority.  Some Bush supporters have claimed that while he has asserted the authority to ignore laws, he has not actually done so.  An article in today's Washington Post should put an end to that claim.

According to the Post:

For the first time, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office -- Congress's investigative arm -- tried to ascertain whether the administration has made good on such declarations of presidential power. In appropriations acts for fiscal 2006, GAO investigators found 160 separate provisions that Bush had objected to in signing statements. They then chose 19 to follow.
Of those 19 provisions, six -- nearly a third -- were not carried out according to law. Ten were executed by the executive branch. On three others, conditions did not require an executive branch response.

In other words, it is now beyond dispute that the Bush administration has broken the laws passed by Congress.  To us poor bloggers this may seem like important news.  But not to the Post, which buries the article on the bottom of page 4.

Comments



I've written about this previously. (Lowell - 6/19/2007 9:34:44 AM)
Bush's "signing statements" are a direct assault on our Constitutional separation of powers.  Basically, what Bush is doing is signing bills into law with one pen, while with another pen writing "ha ha, suckers!"