Signing statement - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued by the President of the United States

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

upon the signing of a bill

Bill (proposed law)

A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....

into law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

. They are usually printed along with the bill in United States Code Congressional and Administrative News

United States Code Congressional and Administrative News

The United States Code Congressional and Administrative News is a West Group publication that collects selected Congressional and administrative materials for publication in a single resource. U.S.C.C.A.N. was first published in 1941 with the 1st Session of the 77th Congress and has been published...

(USCCAN).

During the administration of President George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, there was a controversy over the President's use of signing statements, which critics charged was unusually extensive and modified the meaning of statutes. The practice predates the Bush administration, however, and has since been continued by the Obama administration. In July 2006, a task force of the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

stated that the use of signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws serves to "undermine the rule of law

Rule of law

The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

and our constitutional

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

system of separation of powers

Separation of powers

The separation of powers, often imprecisely used interchangeably with the trias politica principle, is a model for the governance of a state. The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic...

". In fact, the Constitution does not authorize the President to use signing statements to circumvent any validly enacted Congressional Laws, nor does it authorize him to declare he will disobey such laws (or parts thereof). When a bill is presented to the President, the Constitution (Art. II) allows him only three choices: do nothing, sign the bill, or (if he disapproves of the bill) veto it in its entirety and return it to the House in which it originated, along with his written objections to it.

Types

A study released by then-Assistant Attorney General, 1993–1996, Walter Dellinger grouped signing statements into three categories:

Constitutional: asserts that the law is constitutionally defective in order to guide executive agencies in limiting its implementation;
Political: defines vague terms in the law to guide executive agencies in its implementation as written;
Rhetorical: uses the signing of the bill to mobilize political constituencies.

In recent usage, the phrase "signing statement" has referred mostly to statements relating to constitutional matters that direct executive agencies to apply the law according to the president's interpretation of the Constitution.

The "non-signing statement" is a related method that some presidents have used to express concerns about certain provisions in a bill without vetoing it. With the non-signing statement, presidents announce their reasons for declining to sign, while allowing the bill to become law unsigned. The U.S. Constitution allows such enactments by default: if the President does not sign the bill, it becomes law after ten days "unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return..."

Applying a metric to signing statements

There is a controversy about how to count an executive's use of signing statements. A "flat count" of total signing statements would include the rhetorical and political statements as well as the constitutional. This may give a misleading number when the intent is to count the number of constitutional challenges issued.

Another common metric is to count the "number of statute

Statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law, decided by courts, and regulations...

s" that are disputed by signing statements. This addresses a count of the constitutional issues but may be inherently inaccurate, due not only to ambiguity in the signing statements themselves but also to the method of determining which statutes are challenged.

A Congressional Research Service

Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service , known as "Congress's think tank", is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS works exclusively and directly for Members of Congress, their Committees and staff on a...

report issued on September 17, 2007, uses as a metric the percentage of signing statements that contain "objections" to provisions of the bill being signed into law:

President Reagan issued 250 signing statements, 86 of which (34%) contained provisions objecting to one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President George H. W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 228 signing statements, 107 of which (47%) raised objections. President Clinton’s conception of presidential power proved to be largely consonant with that of the preceding two administrations. In turn, President Clinton made aggressive use of the signing statement, issuing 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised constitutional or legal objections. President George W. Bush has continued this practice, issuing 152 signing statements, 118 of which (78%) contain some type of challenge or objection.

In March 2009, the New York Times cited a different metric, the number of sections within bills that were challenged in signing statements:

"Mr. Bush ... broke all records, using signing statements to challenge about 1,200 sections of bills over his eight years in office, about twice the number challenged by all previous presidents combined, according to data compiled by Christopher Kelley, a political science professor at Miami University in Ohio."

Legal significance

No United States Constitution

United States Constitution

provision, federal statute, or common-law principle explicitly permits or prohibits signing statements. However, there is also no part of the Constitution which grants any legal value to signing statements. Article I

Article One of the United States Constitution

Article One of the United States Constitution describes the powers of Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government. The Article establishes the powers of and limitations on the Congress, consisting of a House of Representatives composed of Representatives, with each state gaining or...

, Section 7 (in the Presentment Clause

Presentment Clause

The Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution outlines federal legislative procedure by which bills originating in Congress become federal law in the United States.-Text:...

) empowers the president to veto a law in its entirety, to sign it, or to do nothing. Article II

Article Two of the United States Constitution

Article Two of the United States Constitution creates the executive branch of the government, consisting of the President and other executive officers.-Clause 1: Executive power:...

, Section 3 requires that the executive "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". The Constitution does not authorize the President to cherry-pick which parts of validly enacted Congressional Laws is he going to obey and execute, and which he is not.

Signing statements do not appear to have legal force by themselves, although they are all published in the Federal Register

Federal Register

The Federal Register , abbreviated FR, or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains most routine publications and public notices of government agencies...

. As a practical matter, they may give notice of the way that the Executive intends to implement a law, which may make them more significant than the text of the law itself. There is a controversy about whether they should be considered as part of legislative history

Legislative history

Legislative history includes any of various materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken...

; proponents argue that they reflect the executive's position in negotiating with Congress; opponents assert that the executive's view of a law is not constitutionally part of the legislative history because only the Congress may make law.

Presidential signing statements maintain particular potency with federal executive agencies, since these agencies are often responsible for the administration and enforcement of federal laws. A 2007 article in the Administrative Law Review
Administrative Law Review
The Administrative Law Review was established in 1948 and is the official law journal of the American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice.-Overview:...

noted how some federal agencies' usage of signing statements may not withstand legal challenges under common law standards of judicial deference to agency action.

Supreme Court rulings

The Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

has not squarely addressed the limits of signing statements. Marbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison, is a landmark case in United States law and in the history of law worldwide. It formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution. It was also the first time in Western history a court invalidated a law by declaring...

(1803) and its progeny are generally considered to have established judicial review

Judicial review

Judicial review is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review by the judiciary. Specific courts with judicial review power must annul the acts of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher authority...

as a power of the Court, rather than of the Executive. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of a statute which it administers...

, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), established court deference to executive interpretations of a law "if Congress has not directly spoken to the precise question at issue" and if the interpretation is reasonable. This applies only to executive agencies; the President himself is not entitled Chevron deference. To the extent that a signing statement would nullify part or all of a law, the Court may have addressed the matter in Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York, , is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United...

(1998), which invalidated the line-item veto

Line-item veto

In United States government, the line-item veto, or partial veto, is the power of an executive authority to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill, usually a budget appropriations bill, without vetoing the entire legislative package...

because it violated bicameralism

Bicameralism

In the government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses....

and presentment

Presentment Clause

The Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution outlines federal legislative procedure by which bills originating in Congress become federal law in the United States.-Text:...

.

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lack "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military...

(2006), the Supreme Court gave no weight to a signing statement in interpreting the Detainee Treatment Act

Detainee Treatment Act

The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 is an Act of the United States Congress that prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; requires military interrogations to be performed according to the U.S...

of 2005, according to that case's dissent (which included Justice Alito, a proponent of expanded signing statements when he worked in the Reagan Justice Department — see "Presidential Usage" below).

Presidential usage

The first president

President of the United States

to issue a signing statement was James Monroe

James Monroe

James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...

. Until the 1980s, with some exceptions, signing statements were generally triumphal, rhetorical, or political proclamations and went mostly unannounced. Until Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

became President, only 75 statements had been issued; Reagan and his successors George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

and Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

produced 247 signing statements among the three of them. By the end of 2004, George W. Bush

George W. Bush

had issued 108 signing statements containing 505 constitutional challenges. As of January 30, 2008, he had signed 157 signing statements challenging over 1,100 provisions of federal law.

The upswing in the use of signing statements during the Reagan administration coincides with the writing by Samuel A. Alito — then a staff attorney in the Justice Department

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

's Office of Legal Counsel

Office of Legal Counsel

The Office of Legal Counsel is an office in the United States Department of Justice that assists the Attorney General in his function as legal adviser to the President and all executive branch agencies.-History:...

— of a 1986 memorandum making the case for "interpretive signing statements" as a tool to "increase the power of the Executive to shape the law." Alito proposed adding signing statements to a "reasonable number of bills" as a pilot project, but warned that "Congress is likely to resent the fact that the President will get in the last word on questions of interpretation."

A November 3, 1993 memo from White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum explained the use of signing statements to object to potentially unconstitutional legislation:

"If the President may properly decline to enforce a law, at least when it unconstitutionally encroaches on his powers, then it arguably follows that he may properly announce to Congress and to the public that he will not enforce a provision of an enactment he is signing. If so, then a signing statement that challenges what the President determines to be an unconstitutional encroachment on his power, or that announces the President's unwillingness to enforce (or willingness to litigate) such a provision, can be a valid and reasonable exercise of Presidential authority."

This same Department of Justice memorandum observed that use of Presidential signing statements to create legislative history for the use of the courts was uncommon before the Reagan and Bush Presidencies. In 1986, Attorney General Edwin Meese

Edwin Meese

Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...

III entered into an arrangement with the West Publishing Company to have Presidential signing statements published for the first time in the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, the standard collection of legislative history.

Controversy over George W. Bush's use of signing statements

George W. Bush's use of signing statements was and is controversial, both for the number of times employed (estimated at over 750 opinions) and for the apparent attempt to nullify legal restrictions on his actions through claims made in the statements — for example, his signing statement attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 is a United States law to authorize funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, for military construction, and for national security-related energy programs. In the signing statement, President George W...

. Some opponents have said that he in effect uses signing statements as a line-item veto

Line-item veto

; the Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

had previously ruled such vetoes as unconstitutional in the 1998 case, Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York, , is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United...

.

Previous administrations had made use of signing statements to dispute the validity of a new law or its individual components. George H. W. Bush challenged 232 statutes through signing statements during four years in office and Clinton challenged 140 over eight years. George W. Bush's 130 signing statements contain at least 1,100 challenges.

The signing statement associated with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, prohibiting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody attracted controversy:

"The executive branch shall construe... the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power...."

The use of signing statements that fall in to the constitutional category can create conundrums for executive branch employees. Political scientist James Pfiffner has written:

"The president is the head of the executive branch, and in general, executive branch officials are bound to follow his direction. In cases in which a subordinate is ordered to do something illegal, the person can legitimately refuse the order. But if the public administrator is ordered to refuse to execute the law ... because the president has determined that the law infringes on his own interpretation of his constitutional authority, the public administrator faces an ethical dilemma."

Blue ribbon panel on signing statements

On July 24, 2006, the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

's Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine, appointed by ABA President Michael S. Greco

Michael S. Greco

Michael Spencer Greco is a former President of the American Bar Association . He is currently a partner in the Boston office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP, and a former partner at the now-defunct Hill and Barlow.-ABA Presidency:As President of the American Bar Association,...

, issued a widely publicized report condemning some uses of signing statements. The task force report and recommendations were unanimously approved by ABA delegates at their August 2006 meeting.

The bipartisan and independent blue ribbon panel was chaired by Miami lawyer Neal Sonnett

Neal Sonnett

Neal Sonnett is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney. He was the 1989 winner of the Robert C. Heeney Memorial Award and in 2008 the American Bar Association Senior Lawyers Division presented him with the John H. Pickering Award Of Achievement. He was the American Bar Association's observer at...

, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division for the Southern District of Florida. He is past chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, chair of the ABA Task Force on Domestic Surveillance and the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants; and president-elect of the American Judicature Society.
The report stated in part:

"Among those unanimous recommendations, the Task Force voted to:

"oppose, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, a President's issuance of signing statements to claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress;

"urge the President, if he believes that any provision of a bill pending before Congress would be unconstitutional if enacted, to communicate such concerns to Congress prior to passage;

"urge the President to confine any signing statements to his views regarding the meaning, purpose, and significance of bills, and to use his veto power if he believes that all or part of a bill is unconstitutional;

"urge Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements, and to report to Congress the reasons and legal basis for any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, and to make all such submissions be available in a publicly accessible database."

Signing statements in the Obama Administration

On March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

ordered his executive officials to consult Attorney General Eric Holder

Eric Holder

Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. is the 82nd and current Attorney General of the United States and the first African American to hold the position, serving under President Barack Obama....

before relying on one of George W. Bush

George W. Bush

's signing statements to bypass a statute. He stated that he only plans to use signing statements when given legislation by Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

which contain unconstitutional

Constitutionality

Constitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...

provisions. In a memo to the heads of each department in the Executive Branch, Obama wrote:

"In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded."

During his presidential campaign, Obama rejected the use of signing statements. He was asked at one rally: "when congress offers you a bill, do you promise not to use presidential signing statements to get your way?" Obama gave a one-word reply: "Yes." He added that "we aren't going to use signing statements as a way to do an end run around Congress." On March 11, 2009, President Obama issued his first signing statement, attached to the omnibus spending bill

Omnibus spending bill

An omnibus spending bill is a bill that sets the budget of many departments of the United States government at once. It is one possible outcome of the budget process in the U.S....

for the second half of FY2009.
The statement indicated that the President would ignore several provisions of the bill, including sections dealing with negotiations with foreign governments, restrictions on US involvement in UN peacekeeping missions, protections for government whistleblowers, and certain congressional claims of authority over spending. Obama has issued 18 signing statements as of as of June 4, 2011.

Congressional efforts to restrict signing statements

Sen. Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009...

(D-Pa. [then, R-Pa.]) introduced the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006 on July 26, 2006. The bill would:

Instruct all state and federal courts to ignore presidential signing statements. ("No State or Federal court shall rely on or defer to a presidential signing statement as a source of authority.")
Instruct the Supreme Court to allow the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives to file suit in order to determine the constitutionality of signing statements.

The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Specter formerly chaired, on the day it was introduced. As with all unpassed bills, it expired with the end of the 109th United States Congress

109th United States Congress

The One Hundred Ninth United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, during the fifth and sixth years of George W. Bush's presidency. House members...

on 9 December 2006.

Specter reintroduced the legislation with the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007, but it died in the same committee.

External links

Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and Institutional Implications, Congressional Research Service, September 17, 2007
Presidential Signing Statements Browsable database of signing statements from 1929 through the present. Added on June 30, 2006.
DoD Bill Signing Statement Example of a signing statement issued by President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

on November 4, 1999.
By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action By Phillip J. Cooper. University Press of Kansas: 2002.
Alito Once Made Case For Presidential Power By Christopher Lee. Washington Post. January 2, 2006. (Discussing encouragement of the use of signing statements by Samuel Alito
Samuel Alito
Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006....

when he worked in the administration of former President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

)
For President, Final Say on a Bill Sometimes Comes After the Signing By Elisabeth Bumiller. The New York Times. January 16, 2006.
Bush Shuns Patriot Act Requirement By Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage is a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C., with the New York Times, which he joined in May 2008. In 2007, when employed by the Boston Globe, he was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on the issue of Presidential Signing Statements, specifically the use...

. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

. March 24, 2006. (Disclosing Bush's claim, in a signing statement, that he has the authority to defy provisions in the new version of the USA Patriot Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...

requiring him to tell Congress how he is using its expanded police powers.)
The Problem With Presidential Signing Statements by Richard A. Epstein, Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...

, July 18, 2006.
Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws By Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage is a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C., with the New York Times, which he joined in May 2008. In 2007, when employed by the Boston Globe, he was the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on the issue of Presidential Signing Statements, specifically the use...

. The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...

. April 30, 2006. (A detailed look at five years of specific signing statement claims.)
"Bush cites authority to bypass FEMA law" by Charlie Savage. The Boston Globe, October 6, 2006
Reinterpreting Torture: Presidential Signing Statements and the Circumvention of U.S. and International Law by Erin Louise Palmer. Human Rights Brief (Fall 2006).

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Types

Applying a metric to signing statements

Legal significance

Supreme Court rulings

Presidential usage

Controversy over George W. Bush's use of signing statements

Blue ribbon panel on signing statements

Signing statements in the Obama Administration

Congressional efforts to restrict signing statements

See also

Further reading

External links