I never thought I’d call U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter heroic, but his decision to take on the White House over its use of signing statements to skirt the law makes him, well, heroic.
The Republican senator from Pennsylvania, who is chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would allow the Congress to challenge the president’s use of signing statements as de facto vetoes in court, hoping to have the president’s actions declared unconstitutional.
Specter was responding to a report from the American Bar Association that called the manner in which the president has used the signing statements — as extra-legal vetoes — “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.”
The report, issued Monday, outlined the history of signing statements, demonstrating that President Bush’s use of them (800 so far, 200 more than all other presidents combined) is far different and far more pernicious than any of his predecessors. Earlier presidents used them but never as a replacement for the veto — the president’s sole avenue to enter the legislative process.
The president, the report says, has resisted the veto (until last week), avoiding the potential that Congress might attempt an override. Instead, he has used the signing statements to announce his intention to ignore all or parts of new laws with which he disagrees. The signing statements, the report says, generally lack any kind of documentation supporting the administration’s contentions.
The report cites several examples. The president has refused to carry out laws involving “Congressional requirements to report back to Congress on the use of Patriot Act authority to secretly search homes and seize private papers” and “the McCain amendment forbidding any U.S. officials to use torture or cruel and inhumane treatment on prisoners.”
The report also pointed to signing statements that made clear that the president did not believe he was mandated to make reports to Congress on intelligence issues — as required by the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2002. Instead, his signing statement announced that he viewed Congress as having an advisory capacity.
That’s the key to understanding the signing statements. The president views the legislative branch as the junior branch, believing that the executive can operate — especially in what the president determines as a time of war, as hazily defined as this war may be — without oversight and without interference.
Dick Polman, in his American Debate blog, describes the Bar Association report this way:
(T)hese pillars of the legal establishment are arguing that this particular president is potentially wreaking havoc with the Constitution, and that the only way to thwart him is for Congress to take drastic action that could put it on a collision course with the White House. I haven’t heard talk like this from the legal establishment since Richard Nixon’s executive excesses during Watergate.
That’s where Specter comes in. Specter is proposing legislation that would allow Congress to sue the president over his use of signing statements, legislation that he says “will give the Congress standing to seek relief in the federal courts in situations where the president has issued such signing statements and which will authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements, with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional.”
Dan Froomkin in his Washington Post White House Briefing says Specter’s challenge to the president “has the potential to spark a historic battle over the separation of powers.”
That’s assuming the legislation can get through both houses of Congress and win approval from the president.
Specter, as a Republican and as chairman of the committee that will hold hearings on the legislation, has as good a shot as anyone to move the bill along. And while I doubt it ultimately will make it to the president’s desk, Specter should be applauded for ensuring that there is some level of debate over the issue.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
Hank Kalet 
I like it! Good job. Go on.»