The recent egregious signing statement by George W Bush claiming the right to open and read the mail of Americans has finally pushed the issue of signing statements into the main stream media and into the realm of public discourse. This issue is actually a good starting point to mount an attack on the idea of signing statements because people feel fundamentally protective of their mail. And now that the majority of the electorate seems to have shaken off their knee-jerk immediate fear reaction whenever the words terrorism or 9-11 are invoked the time appears to be right too. It seems that everyone who understands the issue of signing statements - and is outside the Presidential cabal - agrees that they are a terrible idea but I feel that the extent of the dangers that signing statements haven't yet been fully discussed.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or a Constitutional scholar but I think I can see what's coming down the road if we don't find a way to drag the entire idea of signing statements into the light and kill them once and for all.
The signing statement renders the powers of the Legislative branch moot. The President's power over the Legislative branch is supposed to be the power of veto but if a super majority of Congress (and presumably the American people) insists on something becoming law they are allowed to overrule the President's wishes, but the signing statement gives the President a un-overturnable and un-reviewable veto power. The founders of our nation clearly did not intend this when they created the Constitution.
It is easy to see that once one accepts the legitimacy of signing statements the sitting President is essentially free to interpret the enforcement of any law in any way he sees fit. If we accept that the President gets to make a statement about how the Executive branch "interprets" the law as he is signing it then it is the first step down a slippery slope to an Executive Branch that exists and operates outside all laws and boundaries.
If the President who signs a law has the right to create a signing statement are future Presidents bound by that signing statement?
Can't a sitting President alter a previous President's signing statement?
What if no signing statement was made? Is the sitting President allowed to retro-actively create one?
If a President can "interpret" a law when it is signed into law why not after it has already been signed?
How can Congress or the Supreme Court curtail a power that is inherent in the office of the Presidency?
Did the President violate FISA by using warrantless wiretapping? Not if he retroactively creates a signing statement that says it doesn't apply to him. The extended logic of the power of signing statements frees the President from observance of any law he simply chooses to ignore. And once the power of the signing statement is considered to be a innate power of the Presidency if will be for the President alone to decide where, when, why and how it will be used and these decisions will be outside the reach of either of the other branches of government.
The signing statement is a crucial building block in the building of the Imperial Presidency that destroys the intent of the Constitutional system of checks and balances between the branches of government. The real question is how do we put a stop to it? Is there a legal mechanism short of impeachment to challenge this practice? If not the choice, or more accurately, the obligation to put an explicit stop to it is clear.
=Hiredman