Signing Statements and Secrecy

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Orin Kerr makes a great point about presidential signing statements here. It’s a grave problem that the president has decided that his Article II powers exempt him from having to obey every single provision of every bill signed into law, especially provisions he thinks are unconstitutional. But another—and perhaps bigger—problem is that Bush sometimes doesn’t explain what, exactly, he disagrees with. If he did, then perhaps Congress could respond appropriately—perhaps by passing other laws to constrain the president if need be, and there might still be at least some semblance of checks and balances.

Instead, Bush just says that he’s free to disagree with and disobey parts of the law, but declines to say which parts. To make the contrast clear, as a commenter at Orin Kerr’s site points out, Bill Clinton occasionally used signing statements to disagree with parts of bills he thought unconstitutional (never to the extent Bush has, though), but he specified exactly what he was doing and why he disagreed. The same isn’t true of Bush; basically, we have no idea what laws he thinks he can violate.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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