Sorry Colbert: Bush is still way more than 1/3 of a Hitler
Boston Globe (4/30/06): Bush Has Claimed Authority to Unilaterally Nullify 750+ Laws Passed by Congress
ETA: NYT (5/5/06): OpEd on Bush's Unconstitutional Veto
As the NYT Editors point out, this explains why Bush has famously never yet vetoed a law passed by Congress. He doesn't need to. After all, the veto power has two pesky little drawbacks: it gets bad press and the Constitution allows Congress to override it. But no one really is interested in the boring actual texts of lawmaking, so these signing statements pass under the radar. They "merely" state the President's interpretation of the law's constitutionality and his resolution as to which parts of a law he feels are enforceable, and so they do not fit within the Constitution's lawmaking framework and cannot be reviewed by Congress.
Congress may well pass laws that the Executive Branch cannot constitutionally and should not enforce. But according to Chief Justice John Marshall in the most seminal case in American law, Marbury v. Madison, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department" - NOT the Executive - "to say what the law is."
Of course, this isn't a universal truth, especially not since the oft-cited Chevron v. NRDC, which granted broad deference to the administrative bodies of the Executive Branch in interpreting the scope of laws' application. But even Chevron proponent and Constitutional law casebook author Cass Sunstein maintains that the Chevron standard isn't appropriate for constitutional questions. It is significant, then, that so many of Bush's key signing statements have excused the military from Constitutional obligations, such as, in many cases, that intelligence be collected in compliance with the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure rule.
The use of signing statements to completely nullify a law -- which Bush has done in numerous instances -- is in itself a Constitutional question. The effect is exactly the same as a veto, but without Congress's Constitutional check on it. Bush's signing statements recall the line-item veto that the Supreme Court rejected in the mid-1990s, on the basis that the President could use it to nullify portions of a law without re-submitting the revised version to Congressional approval. (Interestingly, Bush has also been pushing a bill that would grant him line-item veto power, albeit in a slightly more limited form than Clinton's.)
Finally, the Globe points out that Bush's acts exceed his powers not only as against the Judiciary's and Congress's, but over the Executive Branch as well. The Supreme Court has upheld Congress's power to create independent posts within the Executive Branch, but Bush defies this ruling with signing statements claiming that he constitutionally enjoys control over any Executive official.
IN SUM: Many Americans know Bush as a bull in the china shop of our Constitutional freedoms. But Bush is just as depraved, reckless, and power-mad, if not more so, when it comes to the democratic institutions that make up the bedrock of our Constitutional system. His hostility toward the courts, Congress, and the states (see the lawsuit brought by 10 states against the Administration) shows him for what he is: nothing short of an enemy to America as its Founders endowed it.
ETA: NYT (5/5/06): OpEd on Bush's Unconstitutional Veto
As the NYT Editors point out, this explains why Bush has famously never yet vetoed a law passed by Congress. He doesn't need to. After all, the veto power has two pesky little drawbacks: it gets bad press and the Constitution allows Congress to override it. But no one really is interested in the boring actual texts of lawmaking, so these signing statements pass under the radar. They "merely" state the President's interpretation of the law's constitutionality and his resolution as to which parts of a law he feels are enforceable, and so they do not fit within the Constitution's lawmaking framework and cannot be reviewed by Congress.
Congress may well pass laws that the Executive Branch cannot constitutionally and should not enforce. But according to Chief Justice John Marshall in the most seminal case in American law, Marbury v. Madison, "it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department" - NOT the Executive - "to say what the law is."
Of course, this isn't a universal truth, especially not since the oft-cited Chevron v. NRDC, which granted broad deference to the administrative bodies of the Executive Branch in interpreting the scope of laws' application. But even Chevron proponent and Constitutional law casebook author Cass Sunstein maintains that the Chevron standard isn't appropriate for constitutional questions. It is significant, then, that so many of Bush's key signing statements have excused the military from Constitutional obligations, such as, in many cases, that intelligence be collected in compliance with the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure rule.
The use of signing statements to completely nullify a law -- which Bush has done in numerous instances -- is in itself a Constitutional question. The effect is exactly the same as a veto, but without Congress's Constitutional check on it. Bush's signing statements recall the line-item veto that the Supreme Court rejected in the mid-1990s, on the basis that the President could use it to nullify portions of a law without re-submitting the revised version to Congressional approval. (Interestingly, Bush has also been pushing a bill that would grant him line-item veto power, albeit in a slightly more limited form than Clinton's.)
Finally, the Globe points out that Bush's acts exceed his powers not only as against the Judiciary's and Congress's, but over the Executive Branch as well. The Supreme Court has upheld Congress's power to create independent posts within the Executive Branch, but Bush defies this ruling with signing statements claiming that he constitutionally enjoys control over any Executive official.
IN SUM: Many Americans know Bush as a bull in the china shop of our Constitutional freedoms. But Bush is just as depraved, reckless, and power-mad, if not more so, when it comes to the democratic institutions that make up the bedrock of our Constitutional system. His hostility toward the courts, Congress, and the states (see the lawsuit brought by 10 states against the Administration) shows him for what he is: nothing short of an enemy to America as its Founders endowed it.