Question for the next GOP debate: yea or nay on signing statements?

Bush’s abuse of signing statements has been a constitutional mess for several years now — with more than 151 signing statements challenging 1149 provisions of laws, Bush is without rival in American history — but this week, matters grew particularly ugly.

After a bizarre and unexpected veto, Congress passed a defense authorization bill, funding, among other things, salaries for U.S. troops. The president signed the measure into law, but issued signing statements explaining which parts of the law he’s decided to ignore. Most notably, Congress (you know, the branch with the power of the purse), prohibited the use of federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq. Bush made the measure law, and then said he reserves the right to use federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq.

Dan Froomkin translated: “The overall message to Congress was clear: I’m not bound by your laws.”

As one might imagine, lawmakers were less than pleased.

* House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “I reject the notion in his signing statement that he can pick and choose which provisions of this law to execute. His job, under the Constitution, is to faithfully execute the law – every part of it – and I expect him to do just that.”

* Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.): “Congress has a right to expect that the Administration will faithfully implement all of the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 — not just the ones the President happens to agree with…. With his signature these provisions become the law of the land. Congress and the American people have a right to expect that the Administration will now faithfully carry them out.”

* Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.): “[T]he President of the United States — who has been in charge of the conduct of this war and whose administration has been in charge of executing these contracts, supervising them, making sure that they meet the requirements of fairness in the law — is now saying that he believes that a legislative body can enact a law that he can choose to ignore because he says it would interfere with his responsibility to supervise a war as Commander-and-Chief.”

So, here’s the question: where are the Republicans? More notably, where are the Republican presidential candidates, led by a sitting senator?



We know what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think; they’ve both decried these extra-constitutional signing statements on several occasions. But Matt at TP raises a good point: John McCain at least used to oppose Bush’s favorite tactic.

In the past, McCain has spoken out aggressively against signing statements, saying they are “wrong” and that they “should not be done”: “I would never issue a signing statement,” the Arizona senator said at a Rotary Club meeting in Nashua, adding that he “would only sign it or veto” any legislation that reached his desk as president. Perhaps McCain is keeping silent because he shares Bush’s goal of an indefinite, long-term presence of American troops in Iraq. Last month, McCain said it would be “fine with” him “if we maintain a presence in” Iraq for “a hundred” years.

Maybe some enterprising political reporter could follow up on this. Do McCain, Romney, and Huckabee all believe Bush has the constitutional authority to give himself a pass on following certain parts of bills? Are any of them prepared to publicly criticize Bush’s latest signing statements? Are any of them prepared to assure voters they won’t follow in Bush’s constitutionally dubious wake?

On a related note, most of the major dailies ignored the signing statement flap, but The Daily Show provided a pretty solid overview of why the president’s tactic is so offensive.