Obama Will Continue Signing Statements; Calls for Review of His Predecessor’s
EmailABC News’ Karen Travers and Sunlen Miller report:
In a memo to the heads of all executive branch departments and agencies, President Obama says he will continue the use of presidential signing statements but will do so more sparingly than the Bush administration.
“I will issue signing statements to address constitutional concerns only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my constitutional responsibilities,” he wrote, without providing specific details on what would fall under that definition.
These signing statements are legal documents that presidents can release after signing legislation into law if they want to outline their own interpretation of how the law should be implemented.
The Bush administration came under fire for using hundreds of these statements to tell government officials to ignore parts of the law that it believed were unconstitutional restrictions on the president’s executive power, most notably on national security issues.
Today’s presidential memo also instructs all heads of executive departments and agencies to consult with Attorney General Eric Holder before relying on previously issued signing statements (meaning Bush administration signing statements).
Noting that the practice of these statements “can be abused,” Obama said in the memo that these statements should not be used to suggest the president will ignore statutory requirements because of policy disagreements.
“"[S]uch signing statements serve a legitimate function in our system, at least when based on well-founded constitutional objections. In appropriately limited circumstances, they represent an exercise of the President’s constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and they promote a healthy dialogue between the executive branch and the Congress,” Obama wrote.
In order to minimize the use of these statements, Obama said his administration will work with Congress on pending legislation in order to work out any constitutional concerns before it comes time for the bill signing and will approach legislation with the assumption that all parts of the bill are constitutional. Obama, a constitutional law professor, said if concerns remain, he will base them “only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded."
The president does not specify how that interpretation will be reached.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today in the on camera briefing that the president will use signing statements “in order to go back to what has previously been done.”
“And that is to enumerate constitutional problems that either the Justice Department or the legislative counsel here see as a potential problem, through their reading, but not ask that laws be disallowed simply by executive fiat … back to the original intent of a signing — of signing statements, to simply enumerate for those — like I said, what problems might be inherent in a piece of legislation, without asking that the federal government disallow or ignore congressional intent.”
– Karen Travers and Sunlen Miller
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yawn
Posted by: Peace Train | March 9, 2009, 5:45 pm 5:45 pm
While its encouraging that the professed use will be sparing, its about time this genie when back into the bottle uncorked by Reagan.
Signing statements should be a rarity.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
Speaking of his predecessors:
At this point in the Presidencies of Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, the approval polls were:
Carter 70%, Reagan 57%, Bush1 65, Clinton 63, Bush2 65%, Obama 62%.
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 9, 2009, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
Signing statements must be a good thing if Bush and Reagan did it and now Obama has decided to continue doing it.
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 9, 2009, 5:52 pm 5:52 pm
“Speaking of his predecessors:”
Also speaking of his predecessor:
RCP Right Track Avg is the highest its been since July 2008 (when they began charting it) and the Wrong Track avg is at its lowest since that time.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 5:59 pm 5:59 pm
Impeach the socialist idiot Obama now.
Posted by: Sluggo | March 9, 2009, 6:03 pm 6:03 pm
“Signing statements must be a good thing if Bush and Reagan did it and now Obama has decided to continue doing it.”
There is a very limited place for signing statements but the rarer they are, the better.
And its not just the number of statements but the statutes they challenge.
Bush 1 challenged 232 statutes in 4 years.
Clinton challenged 140 in 8 years.
Bush challenged 1100 in 8 years.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 6:03 pm 6:03 pm
“Bush challenged 1100 in 8 years. ”
Confirms Obama’s wise decision to continue doing the same thing as Bush, Bush, and Reagan.
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 9, 2009, 6:09 pm 6:09 pm
“Confirms Obama’s wise decision to continue doing the same thing as Bush, Bush, and Reagan.”
Sigmonde arguing in circles as usual.
Signing statements did not originate with Reagan though he was the first to use them heavily.
If Obama uses them sparingly (very sparingly) he will be returning the signing statement to rare use.
Since Obama has yet to issue a signing statement, it would be premature to compare to him to any of the Presidents (Reagan, Bush, Clinton & Bush) who made use of them.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 6:15 pm 6:15 pm
Ryan
Undoing his predecessors is the same thing. It’s time for you to get a job, Ryan. Start a business, pay FICA taxes for your employees. Right now I am paying yours.
Do something useful.
Posted by: drjohn | March 9, 2009, 6:19 pm 6:19 pm
“If Obama uses them sparingly ”
All depends on what the meaning of “if” is”
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 9, 2009, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm
Signing statements all mean the same thing: “If this goes to court later, here’s the legal position we will use in our effort to defend/expand executive power.” So if you’re like John Yoo, who thinks the President should have ALL power, they’re good. If you think Constitutional issues are better ironed out BEFORE signing, and the judiciary should decide problems that arise AFTER, then you support checks and balances, and signing statements indicate sloppy American lawmaking. Bush was following Yoo’s advice to game the system in favor of more executive power by laying the groundwork for as many court fights as possible. In short, Bush’s 1100 signing statements said “I want to take power from Congress or the Courts” 1100 times. Or do you want to believe that Bush and the REPUBLICAN (6/8 years under Bush) Congress agreed to pass sloppy, unconstitutional laws 1100 times? Check out where Bush & Cheney wanted to take America, then decide if you agree with Yoo: ‘cause if you do, then you’ve got to be willing to give the current President the same absolute power to be legally consistent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo#Unitary_executive_theory
Posted by: Elbert Carson | March 9, 2009, 6:45 pm 6:45 pm
“Obama, a constitutional law professor,”
—————————————-
Jake, you need a correction here. Mr. Obama was a lecturer, not a professor.
Posted by: mad | March 9, 2009, 7:04 pm 7:04 pm
This is just wrong. Signing statements should be done away with entirely.
Posted by: hab | March 9, 2009, 7:16 pm 7:16 pm
Good move. Obama needn’t carve out all of the new residential tools Bush created for himself.
Posted by: matt | March 9, 2009, 7:28 pm 7:28 pm
I think obama sould start worrying less about press and statements and start putting some emergy into the economy and tanking markets. He’s so far over his head and should find someone besides Geihtner to get some stability in the markets before none of us have any retirement left. Of course that sounds like an obama plan to me. More need for BIG giant govt.
Posted by: Jack | March 9, 2009, 8:04 pm 8:04 pm
mad:”Mr. Obama was a lecturer, not a professor.”
If you go by a tight enough definition. Not all professors are tenured, so just because he turned down tenure does not mean he fails to meet the definition of a professor (which unlike engineer, lawyer, land surveyor, plumber, etc. is not a legally protected title anyway). Obama’s academic credentials are not in any legitimate dispute.
Posted by: jhw539 | March 9, 2009, 8:10 pm 8:10 pm
jhw: “If you go by a tight enough definition.”
—————————————-
Mr Obama taught consitutional law. Precision matters.
Posted by: mad | March 9, 2009, 8:22 pm 8:22 pm
mad: “Mr Obama taught consitutional law. Precision matters.”
The law does not allow you to arbitarily make up definitions. The university that he taught for define him as a professor, and the associate dean of the department (not to mention Judge Richard Posner) held the same title of senior lecturer. You do not have any authority to define his position, and the people who do define him as a “professor.”
Posted by: jhw539 | March 9, 2009, 8:25 pm 8:25 pm
“Mr Obama taught consitutional law. Precision matters.”
This right wing talking point became so obnoxious that the Univ of Chicago issued a statement
The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.”
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 8:30 pm 8:30 pm
Obama’s academic credentials are not in any legitimate dispute.
========
This isn’t an argument I really want to be in, but the above statement isn’t true.
As a senior lecturer, he never published any legal scholarship. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say his academic credentials are not in dispute.
Posted by: MayBee | March 9, 2009, 8:34 pm 8:34 pm
hmn…”So the Constitutional scholar is voting to continue Unconstitutional policies from the last administration”
Properly applied, they have not been found unconstitutional. Bush applied them incredibly broadly and issued two or three times as many as every prior president *combined* (they’ve been increasing in use since Reagan ramped them up, but Bush went crazy).
The occasional statement is not a real problem, but Bush used them as a substitute for the veto in many cases.
Posted by: jhw539 | March 9, 2009, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm
“As a senior lecturer, he never published any legal scholarship. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say his academic credentials are not in dispute.”
According to the university he taught at, he was a professor.
The rest is right wing noise.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm
“The occasional statement is not a real problem, but Bush used them as a substitute for the veto in many cases.”
I prefer rare vs occasional.
The signing statement is a modern Presidency thing.
Posted by: Ryan C | March 9, 2009, 8:43 pm 8:43 pm
According to the university he taught at, he was a professor.
—————————————
My apologies. If that is the standard then, then he is.
Posted by: mad | March 9, 2009, 8:44 pm 8:44 pm
jhw: I’m curious as to your statement that if one used a tight definition he was a lecturer rather than a professor.
Posted by: mad | March 9, 2009, 8:47 pm 8:47 pm
mad:”jhw: I’m curious as to your statement that if one used a tight definition he was a lecturer rather than a professor.”
If you defined it by the title placed before his name in the student directory. (The same title given the associate dean at one point…). Or if you defined it only as a fully tenured professor, excluding associate professors and such. I don’t know many universities who use that definition, but maybe some of the departments famous for not tenuring many of their associates would (roundly hated in the field – it’s like flunking out most of your freshmen indicates a problem with the school admissions).
As I said, professor is not a legally protected title. The common practice amongst my over-educated professional student/professor group of friends is that the authority that defines it is the employer and the employer also has to be an accredited institution.
Posted by: jhw539 | March 9, 2009, 8:55 pm 8:55 pm
Obama’s reputation at Chicago was of being lazy. While others wrote volumes to shore up their positions, Obama wrote nothing. It’s not terribly hard to teach 3 classes a week particularly in law school. And Con law is one of the easiest subjects to teach. And it is certainly not a skill that transfers to anything else. Whether he was a lecturer or a professor doesn’t change his stature (or lack thereof) in any meaningful way.
Posted by: Plumber | March 9, 2009, 9:19 pm 9:19 pm
Every Singing statement issued by Bush should be analyzed for the net effect/change it had to the INTENT of the law that it is attached to as well as any residual effect(s) that were not intended.
This is one of the larger subversion’s of our Constitutional system that Bush literally got away with, doing away with the checks and balance from the three branches of government.
More interestingly, why would he feel the need to issue these singing statements when his party controlled both the House & Senate for 6 of the 8 years he was issuing them??
Makes you wonder who he was working for.
Posted by: Darryl the Contractor | March 9, 2009, 9:23 pm 9:23 pm
Every Singing statement issued by Bush should be analyzed for the net effect/change it had to the INTENT of the law that it is attached to as well as any residual effect(s) that were not intended.
~~~~~
Who exactly would you have do that, and under what authority?
Posted by: Plumber | March 9, 2009, 9:29 pm 9:29 pm
jhw, thank you.
Posted by: mad | March 9, 2009, 9:34 pm 9:34 pm
The Justice Department.
They have the charter to true up any inconsistencies as well as the authority to return to Congress and/or Executive branch for corrective language and/or execution of the original law.
Posted by: Darryl the Contractor | March 9, 2009, 9:38 pm 9:38 pm
Darryl,
That function can only be done by a Court, not the Justice department. You will have to find a reason to file suit in every case and wait a decade or two for it to get to the Supremes.
Come to think of it, that might be a good use of the president’s time.
Posted by: Plumber | March 9, 2009, 9:40 pm 9:40 pm
Please clarify, I’m unclear on this:
Does the US Constitution not place the responsibility to determine constitutionality (sic) of legislation firmly in the hands of the judiciary? Was this assignment to the Judicial branch not precisely to avoid the Executive drawing too much power unto itself (thereby protecting the people)?
Why then has this idea, of Presidents deciding the issue as it conveniences their particular agenda, not been challenged?
Posted by: dagnyt | March 9, 2009, 9:53 pm 9:53 pm
Just to put my academic two cents into the discussion of the distinction between professor and lecturer: As an academic, I am familiar with the fact that professor is often used as a catch-all term for anyone who teaches on the college level. And Chicago’s law school has an odd, to my mind, interpretation of the term. They contend that Obama was “regarded as” a professor, “although not full-time or tenure track,” even though his official title was ‘senior lecturer.’ The distinction between a lecturer and a professor, one that the law school seems to have followed in practice if not in terminology, is that lecturers, not being tenure track, are not required to do academic research to retain their positions. Because they are hired only to teach, lecturers traditionally maintain a higher teaching load than professors, who, in addition to teaching, also engage in research, committee work, and student advisement.
Since Obama did not do anything other than lecture, I do not consider his position to have been that of a professor. That is not a put-down– many of the most gifted teachers I know are lecturers and many professors are terrible in the classroom but talented in other ways. For the record, I think teaching is the most important thing a professor does and that it is a shame there is not more emphasis on teaching skills in determinations of tenure and promotion.
Posted by: moderate | March 9, 2009, 10:50 pm 10:50 pm
Obama…a professor? Certainly, you jest. Axelrod writes his speeches.
Obama delivers them via teleprompters
to a breathless audience. The news-mouths proclaim him an obvious genius
even as they point out how asinine
his proposals are…..but will chew
off the head of Limbaugh who points
up the obvious….there’s no THERE, there.
Posted by: Trajan | March 10, 2009, 12:11 am 12:11 am
“Since Obama did not do anything other than lecture, I do not consider his position to have been that of a professor.”
The important thing is that being called a professor carries more import and gravitas on one’s cv than being called a mere lecturer. Obama would never have been elected if he was only referred to as a mere guest lecturer.
Posted by: Sigmonde | March 10, 2009, 12:48 am 12:48 am
Interesting that the Supreme Court has managed to abrogate their responsibilities related to the Constitution and hand over the reins to the legislative and executive branches.
They wanted judicial review so badly once upon a time, and now they seem content with playing the role of simply being the highest body for resolving routine litigation.
Posted by: RR GOP | March 10, 2009, 3:01 am 3:01 am
The University of Chicago decided to call Obama a “professor” as a courtesy. He definitely was NOT a professor. He was only considered a professor during his presidential campaign.
I’m tired of Obama’s phony credentials. Where’s his birth certificate?
Posted by: tina | March 10, 2009, 7:22 am 7:22 am
Obama slings more hash than a short order cook.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | March 10, 2009, 9:18 am 9:18 am
Great…
Posted by: AntarlAtrorry | March 23, 2009, 8:07 am 8:07 am