Bush signs bills just so he can ignore them

Ever wonder why Emperor Bush has never vetoed a bill? Here's why: he believes that he doesn't have to follow them.

From BTC News:

When George Bush signed the defense appropriation bill containing John McCain’s amendment removing torture and other human rights violations from the official repertoire of the armed forces, he added his own little amendment: “Unless I say otherwise.” The vehicle through which he reserved the option to break the law is called a bill-signing statement, and as Knight Ridder’s Ron Hutcheson revealed on Friday, the McCain bill was far from the first victim of the practice: Bush has used it some 500 times since taking office.

I’ve speculated on a few occasions that the White House has had a tacit agreement with Congress: So long as Congress doesn’t interfere with the administration, the president won’t interfere with the drunken-sailor pork bender that distinguishes this Republican Congress from all others. The thesis was based on Bush’s historic reluctance to veto a bill, or even to threaten one; he’s the only president since James Garfield to go an entire term without vetoing a bill, and Garfield was only in office a few months before he was shot.

Apparently, though, the explanation is much simpler. Bush doesn’t veto bills because in his view, he doesn’t have to; he can simply ignore the ones he doesn’t like.

The administration have made that argument explicit, but only in terms of the president’s capacity as “commander in chief” during an endless war, as with the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping, the decisions to ignore various Geneva Conventions and the selective suspension of habeas corpus. According to the Hutcheson story, though, it isn’t only legislation dealing with national security issues that the White House asserts the right to ignore.

In 2003, lawmakers tried to get a handle on Bush’s use of signing statements by passing a Justice Department spending bill that required the department to inform Congress whenever the administration decided to ignore a legislative provision on constitutional grounds.

Bush signed the bill, but issued a statement asserting his right to ignore the notification requirement.

This is from Knight Ridder:

President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement - a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power - and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

The Emperor's signing statements do not have the force of law but can judicialce how tinterprets Branch intreprets it.
They also send a powerful signal to executive branch agencies on how the White House wants them to implement new federal laws.

In some cases, Bush bluntly informs Congress that he has no intention of carrying out provisions that he considers an unconstitutional encroachment on his authority.

"They don't like some of the things Congress has done so they assert the power to ignore it," said Martin Lederman, a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. "The categorical nature of their opposition is unprecedented and alarming."

The White House says its authority stems from the Constitution, but dissenters say that view ignores the Constitution's careful balance of powers between branches of government.

"We know the textbook story of how government works. Essentially what this has done is attempt to upset that," said Christopher Kelley, a presidential scholar at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who generally shares Bush's expansive view of executive authority. "These are directives to executive branch agencies saying that whenever something requires interpretation, you should interpret it the way the president wants you to."

Can we impeach him yet?

BTC article is here:
Bush signs bills but keeps his fingers crossed

The Knight Ridder Article is here:
Bush using a little-noticed strategy to alter the balance of power