Presidential Signing Statements - FAQs -- Learn About Presidential Signing Statements

Presidential Signing Statements
2001-2006

George W. Bush

FAQs
Read About Presidential Signing Statements
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1. What are presidential signing statements?

2. Where can presidential signing statements be obtained?

3. How many statements has George W. Bush signed?

4. Why is George Bush's use of presidential signing statements controversial? What are scholars, attorneys, government officials, and the media saying about presidential signing statements?

5. What are editorials and bloggers saying about presidential signing statements?

1. What are presidential signing statements?

When a United States President signs or vetoes legislation enacted by Congress, he may issue a statement to commenting on his actions. Here's a very brief explanation from Cheryl Nyberg, at the University of Washington School of Law. For what it's worth, here's Wikipedia's entry. (Caveat: This Wikipedia entry erroneously says that a signing statement is a type of proclamation, even though presidential proclamations and presidential signing statements are two distinct types of documents. The article should have used the word "comment" or "pronouncement" to describe the statements, rather than "proclamation." Otherwise, the Wikipedia entry is good enough to get you started.)

2. Where can I find presidential signing statements?

This webpage exists because: (1) most non-lawyers find it difficult to locate the text of presidential signing statements; and (2) even lawyers will find this site more convenient than pecking about for the individual documents. Bloggers and media commentators have remarked on how difficult it is to locate presidential signing statements.

The University of Chicago Law Library has published a very helpful guide to locating presidential documents, including signing statements. However, most of the resources listed there are more easily accessed by attorneys than by members of the public. Most of the sources are inaccessible to laypersons because: (1) access to the source (e.g., print publications by West, or subscription-only online legal databases such as Westlaw or LEXIS-NEXIS) is expensive; or (2) a reader must both visit a law library and have the skills necessary to navigate legal materials; or, (3) when statements are online, they either are spread out among many documents or are not in searchable formats.

This website is certainly not the only place to locate signing statements. The American Presidency Project has the signing statements of all United States Presidents since 1929. (Thanks to Bill Ford, of the University of Chicago Law School and the els.blog, for this link.) While the American Presidency Project provides text of the signing statements of all presidents, it does not provide the text of the laws affected by the signing statements. This website links directly to the full text of the Congressional enactments affected by George W. Bush's signing statements, and it also provides the statements, themselves.

In sum, if you want to see Bill Clinton's and Ronald Reagan's signing statements without access to the text of the affected laws, visit the American Presidency Project. If you want to read George W. Bush's statement upon signing, for instance, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005" and to see the text of that law, use the annotations on this website. This website also places all of George W. Bush's signing statements in one large HTML document to make it easier to search the text of the signing statements (and text excerpted from the affected laws).

The signing statements are available, for free, on the official White House website. However, the White House has not made it easy to locate signing statements. Unlike Executive Orders, Proclamations, or press releases, presidential signing statements are not numbered, grouped, or neatly indexed on the White House website. Nor are they uniformly titled. Further, because the documents employ language that is familiar or useful only to scholars and attorneys, plain language word searches (such as "torture" or "Sarbanes-Oxley") do not bring up signing statements relating to that topic. Signing statements are presented in a more orderly fashion in the "Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (WCPD)," published by the Government Printing Office (GPO). However, to locate all of the signing statements indexed in the WCPD between January of 2001 and June of 2006, one must examine about 290 files.

When this website provides text of a signing statement, it also provides links to the White House website and the GPO's online WCPD whenever possible. Access to official text is provided to help readers verify the text of the signing statements.

The signing statements comment on legislation enacted by Congress and refer to such legislation by bill and resolution numbers. So that readers can easily locate and read the laws discussed in the signing statements, this website also provides links to the full text of all legislation referred to in the signing statements. The statements can be difficult to understand without the laws to which they refer. Links to the text of Congressional enactments appear only on the annotated signing statements page. The annotated signing statements page also provides legal citations to the session laws (the United States Statutes at Large) and to public law numbers. This helps serious researchers: (a) track the laws in codifications of federal statutes (i.e., the United States Code, the United States Code Annotated, and the United States Code Service), and (b) cite the laws.

3. How many has George W. Bush signed?

As of June 28, 2006, George W. Bush has signed 130 documents identified by the White House or GPO as presidential signing statements.

Charlie Savage, of the Boston Globe, and Christopher Kelley, Ph.D, a political scientist at the University of Miami, have examined the signing statements and found challenges to about 750 Congressional enactments within these 130 statements. For instance, Professor Kelley has found challenges to 50 laws in a single bill signing statement (the statement for the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004). Some media sources have reported that there are 750 statements. It is a bit more accurate to say that, to date, 130 statements challenge 750 federal laws.

All of the signing statements that I have located are presented here (unannotated) or here (annotated). The index is here. If anyone locates additional statements that do not appear here, please notify me. To see how I have defined and identified signing statements, click here.

4. Why is George Bush's use of presidential signing statements controversial? What are scholars, attorneys, government officials, and the media saying about presidential signing statements?

There is no simple way to summarize the concerns of scholars, lawyers, and members of Congress concerning George Bush's use of signing statements. Many have called the issue a constitutional crisis and believe that the Bush administration's use of signing statements is an attempt to re-balance the power among the three branches of the federal government, or to lay the groundwork for Supreme Court precedent that could rewrite the law controlling the separation of governmental powers.

The best way to learn about this issue is to read; thus, the links below.

But before you launch into these materials, be aware of an idea that continually surfaces in the writings to date. The idea is that President Bush is using signing statements to expand Executive power at the expense of Congress's powers. Our government has three branches. The Legislature's primary powers are to enact laws, and to control and disburse federal dollars. The Executive's primary powers are to administer (or carry out) laws enacted by Congress, and to command the military. The Judiciary's primary powers are to apply law to individual cases and controversies, and to ensure, by nullifying laws and government actions that offend the Constitution, that government officials do not exceed their powers. The Constitution directly addresses the Executive's power regarding legislation that the Executive does not favor: the President can veto any law that Congress presents for signing. Congress has the power to override that veto by re-enacting the law by a super majority. Throughout our history, this has generally been the end of such controversies. Whenever Congress can muster a super majority to re-enact a law, the President must accept and administer that law, unless the courts rule that the law is unconstitutional. When a President fails to challenge in court a law that he dislikes, and fails to veto the law, and, instead, signs it -- while expressly stating that he is not bound by the law or intends not to administer it as written -- has he seized power that our Constitution gives to the other branches of government? Has he defeated Congress's clear power to override vetoes?

Note, as you read the Bush signing statements, how many of them pertain to appropriations bills. Appropriations bills are the primary way that Congress exercises its power to control federal money. Perhaps this is an extension of a philosophy often associated with the Reagan administration: "The President can rule through the budget." Is President Bush using signing statements as a substitute for a presidential line item veto?

Signing statements are one cornerstone of a controversial legal theory called "the unitary executive branch." In the 130 signing statements issued to date, President Bush makes 114 claims to the power of the "unitary executive." The Supreme Court case, INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), is mentioned 35 times.

At least one legal commentator claims that George W. Bush is also using Executive Orders to advance the idea of the unitary executive. I have not collected or reproduced Executive Orders because they are widely available, free, on the internet. For the text of Executive Orders at the White House, click here. They are also available at the GPO website in the Federal Register and in the WCPD.

The possibility that a president is using signing statements to expand the power of the Executive at the expense of Congress is important enough that, on June 6, 2006, the American Bar Association announced the formation of a "Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine to examine constitutional and legal issues raised by presidents of the United States attaching legal interpretations to federal legislation they sign." In addition, on June 27, 2006, the Judiciary Committee of the Republican-led United States Senate began hearings on President Bush's use of signing statements.

If you find additional writings, please send them along.

     American Bar Association (ABA)
          Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities
           Elisa Massimino and Avidan Cover, While Congress Slept (Winter, 2006)
             Doug Cassel, Washington's "War Against Terrorism" and Human Rights: The View from Abroad (Winter, 2006)
        News Release
           ABA to Examine Constitutional, Legal Issues of Presidential Signing Statements (June 5, 2006)

    ABA Journal
        ABA Task Force To Examine Signing Statements: Group to Study Separation-of-Powers Implications of Presidential Comments on Laws (June, 2006)