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President Bush Spitting on Constitution

To my knowledge, The Boston Globe was the first visible mainstream media outlet to report on President Bush’s use of signing statements to shield the executive from Congressional legislation. Basically, the president would sign a bill that would become law, but he would explain that the executive office was not bound to abide by this new law for this or that reason. Here are the first two paragraphs of The Boston Globe article:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

This article was published in late April, and it served as quite a serious point of discussion throughout the ‘blogosphere’. The American Bar Association took notice of this news on the president’s use of signing statements, and the organization has now published its own report claiming President Bush is indeed violating the United States Constitution through his abuse of the executive signing statement. CNN reports:

President Bush’s penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice.

The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws.

As years go by, one hears more and more comparisons between the Bush administration and the Nixon administration when it comes to issues of executive power. These comparisons generate relatively little useful discussion, in part because comparisons with Nixon are seen as inflammatory. However, with each new piece of evidence that comes to light, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two administrations are indeed quite similar regarding their vision of the executive and the ways in which it interacts with Congress and the courts.

It’s sad to know that we haven’t learned our lessons of thirty years ago. Combine a president whose aim is to vastly expand executive power with a Congress who is willing and able to lay down at the president’s feet, and you have a recipe for continuing and escalating violations of our country’s constitution. The mid-term elections in November are the first chance we, as citizens, have to express our displeasure with our government’s disrespect for this country’s most sacred single document. I sincerely hope we express this displeasure strongly.