Reagan Revolutionaries Appalled By Bush

Reaganites Reconsider

Charlie Savage

History is littered with onetime revolutionaries who grew disillusioned as they watched events snowball into something they'd never intended. In the 1980s the Reagan Revolution brought a new generation of Republican legal activists to Washington determined to help the President reshape the nation in his conservative vision and to overcome the main obstacle to his agenda: Democrats in Congress. Many of these ideologically committed lawyers found jobs in the Justice Department, which--especially after 1985, when Edwin Meese took over as Attorney General--actively sought innovative legal theories and tactics to help Reagan achieve his policy ends unilaterally. The tools for expanding presidential power they developed two decades ago were taken up by the George W. Bush Administration, which has wielded them in far more aggressive ways than their inventors imagined. Now several of the most important veterans of the Reagan Revolution say the Bush team has gone too far. One novel strategy pushed by the Reagan legal team was frequently issuing signing statements--official documents from the President laying out his interpretation of new laws. During Reagan's second term, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel proposed making this previously rare device into a routine tool in order to increase the President's power over the law. The office was then headed by Douglas Kmiec, now a law professor at Pepperdine University. Years later, the use of signing statements would take a second exponential leap. Bush has used the device to challenge the constitutionality of more new laws than all previous Presidents combined--most of them checks on his own power--while going nearly six years before vetoing a bill. Surveying this development, Kmiec last year joined a chorus of critics who said the Administration's legal team was misusing signing statements. Kmiec acknowledged the Reagan team's role in inflating the mechanism, but he insisted that they had used signing statements only for a much more modest purpose: to leave a record of the President's understanding of ambiguous laws for judges to consult during any future litigation. Kmiec rejected Bush's practice of using signing statements to instruct the executive branch to contradict the clearly expressed will of Congress, saying that a President instead ought to veto laws he dislikes. "Following a model of restraint, [the Reagan-era Office of Legal Counsel] took it seriously that we were to construe statutes to avoid constitutional problems, not to invent them," Kmiec told me. He added, "The President is not well served by the lawyers who have been advising him."

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush's Signing Statements

Nothing short of criminal!

Countdown: Federal Officials Rebelling Against Bush Signing Statements

By: Logan Murphy on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 12:55 PM - PDT

As Steve wrote about earlier today, President Bush, in a blatant abuse of his power and the law, has used signing statements to rewrite some 1100 laws enacted by Congress, which is more than all other presidents in our nation’s history–combined.

On Tuesday’s “Countdown”, Jonathan Turley joined Keith Olbermann to discuss those signing statements and what appears to be blowback from federal officials who are refusing to follow Bush’s lead as it may have legal implications for them down the road.

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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

GAO study of Bush signing statements: Big Power Grab

GAO Report on Presidential Signing Statements
June 18th, 2007
by Jesse Lee
From the Judiciary Committee:

GAO Report Shows Power Grab in Presidential Signing Statements

(Washington, DC)- Today, the nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report which found that in a limited number of Presidential signing statements examined, the Bush Administration failed to execute the law as instructed in over 30 percent of the cases. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) requested the report.

GAO researchers found signing statements in 11 of 12 appropriations acts in fiscal year 2006 and examined a sample of 19 provisions with which the President expressed concern in his signing statements. The President objected to, and federal agencies failed to execute, public law in six of those cases - 30 percent of the total sample.

“The Administration is thumbing its nose at the law,” Conyers said. “This study calls for an extensive review of these practices, something the Administration has so far refused to do.”

“The White House cannot pick and choose which laws it follows and which it ignores. When a president signs a bill into law, the president signs the entire bill. The Administration cannot be in the business of cherry picking the laws it likes and the laws it doesn’t,” Senator Byrd said. “This GAO opinion underscores the fact that the Bush White House is constantly grabbing for more power, seeking to drive the people’s branch of government to the sidelines. Too often, the Bush Administration does what it wants, no matter the law. It says what it wants, no matter the facts.

We must continue to demand accountability and openness from this White House to counter this
power grab.”

The new GAO opinion underscores an April finding by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS). The April report found that President George W. Bush has raised objections in his signing statements far more than any of his predecessors. In fact, President Bush issued 149 signing statements, 127 (85 percent) of which raised some objection. The significant rise in the proportion of constitutional objections made by the President Bush is compounded by the fact that these statements are typified by multiple objections, resulting in over 700 challenges to distinct provisions of law.

In comparison, CRS found that President Reagan issued 276 signing statements, 71 of which (26%) contained provisions questioning the constitutionality of one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President Clinton issued 391 statements, 105 of which (27%) raised constitutional concerns or objections.

Some of the most troubling instances that the GAO examined include:

- The Defense Department did not include separate budget justifications documents explaining how Iraq war funding was to be spent in its 2007 budget request, as required by public law;

- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not submit a proposal and expenditure plan for housing, as directed by Congress;

- Customs and Border patrol did not relocate its checkpoints in the Tuscon area every seven days, as directed by Congress.

GAO researchers also studied how federal courts view Presidential signing statements. They found that courts rarely rely on them as authoritative interpretations of the law.

Read the full report (pdf) >>

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.