Signing Away Your Rights

Anyone who's still arguing that the Prez's addition of "signing statements" when he signs legislation into law is a harmless difference of political opinion needs to check out a recent study from the Government Accountability Office. Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe brought the issue into the spotlight last year with his report on the limitations the Prez placed on John McCain's anti-torture ban, so let's see what he's got to say about it today.

Federal officials have disobeyed at least six new laws that President Bush challenged in his signing statements, a government study disclosed yesterday. The report provides the first evidence that the government may have acted on claims by Bush that he can set aside laws under his executive powers.

In a report to Congress, the non partisan Government Accountability Office studied a small sample of the bill provisions that Bush has signed into law but also challenged with signing statements. The GAO found that agencies disobeyed six such laws, while enforcing 10 others as written even though Bush had challenged them.

The study was commissioned by Congressman John Conyers, among others, who commented, "The administration is thumbing its nose at the law." Well, of course it is. The Republican Congress let him get away with that and enabled him for six years--why should he do otherwise? He's been allowed to pick and choose what he'd accept from Congress, and that's too much power to hand back voluntarily. To prove that the administration has no intention of changing its stripes now, White House spokesperson Tony Fratto replied: "We are executing the law as we believe we are empowered to do so. The signing statements certainly do and should have an impact. They are real." Yes, they are real, but that doesn't make them equivalent to legislation passed by Congress.

The GAO can't assign blame, and they can't offer anything but circumstantial evidence. Maybe it's just a huge coincidence that sometimes the Prez says you don't have to follow this part of a bill and then the executive agency does just that. We need the Congress to step up its oversight of the Bushies has never been more clear.