According to the papers, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold hearings next week on the President's use of signing statements to declare certain portions of statutes advisory or essentially ineffective. A Virginia attorney has put together an impressive website with the full text of Bush's signing statements and other relevant information. It includes
documents that the GPO or White House has expressly identified as bill signing statements have been included. Bill signing "remarks" are not included. Statements by the President commenting on, commending, applauding, or encouraging actions by Congress, or either camera of it, are not included. Executive Orders and Proclamations are not included, as they are distinct presidential documents with clearly defined legal import. Presidential remarks and speeches, and statements by the White House Press Secretary or other officials, are not included.
Hat tip to Jack Balkin.
Good background reading is Philip Cooper's article, George W. Bush, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Use and Abuse of Presidential Signing Statements, 35 Presidential Studies Quarterly 515 (2005). It can be found in pdf form here or here.
Photo: White House photo by Shealah Craighead
UPDATES: Along with an incredible amount of additional material, the American Presidency Project website has presidential signing statements going back to Herbert Hoover. According to the current count, the website has 67,283 documents. The website is affiliated with U.C. Santa Barbara's Department of Political Science and maintained by John Woolley and Gerhard Peters. For a legal analysis of signing statements by then Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger see here.
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