House Chairs Push Back Against Obama Signing Statements

House Democrats issued a warning to President Obama on Tuesday: Cool it with the signing statements.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, joined Rep. David Obey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and two of their respective subcommittee chairs to send a statement to Obama warning him that use of the statements, which signal that the president does not feel bound by some pieces of the legislation they pass, makes it more difficult to corral support on close votes.

Their complaint refers to a statement Obama appended to the war supplemental, a bill that prompted stiff opposition from House Republicans, antiwar Democrats and civil-liberties advocates last month. Ultimately House leadership pushed through funding for the International Monetary Fund, tallying the necessary votes by erasing the Senate-supported detainee photo ban from the final version of the bill. But the final bill also attached strings to the IMF funding, strings that Obama's signing statement indicates he does not intend to respect.

Signing statements have been used by presidents throughout U.S. history to dissent from certain elements of a particular bill. President George W. Bush issued more than 750 during his eight years in office suggesting that he did not intend to abide by a wide variety of laws passed by Congress. By comparison, President Bill Clinton issued only 140 signing statements during his two terms. President George H.W. Bush signed 230 during his single term.

"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the President's assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce. We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude," the committee chairs wrote in Tuesday's letter. "[T]he policy of using signing statements to assert the right of the White House to ignore certain provisions of legislation regarding the IMF, the World Bank, and other international financial institutions may result not in the invalidation of those various provisions, but rather in insufficient Congressional support for further funding of these institutions."

Obama appended his first signing statement to the omnibus spending bill in March. During the campaign, however, he had vowed not to use signing statements once in office, saying, "We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress." WATCH:

Tuesday's letter appears in full below:

July 21, 2009

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President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President,

We were surprised to read your signing statement in which you expressed the view that you are constitutionally free to ignore the conditions duly adopted in the legislative process regarding funding for the international financial institutions. As you know, there was a great deal of resistance to this funding during debate on the supplemental bill -- as there often is for these entities -- and the four of us worked very hard to support the inclusion of funding for the IMF and the World Bank.

The conditions that you have expressed your right to ignore are critical: each represents significant policy concerns, especially in light of the history of many of the international financial institutions that we believe have been insufficiently supportive of values that we know you share with us. In addition, these conditions were important in securing support in both houses.

During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the President's assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce. We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude.

Along with your assurances that you will respect these conditions, we request that you no longer assert the right to ignore provisions that Congress adds through the normal legislative process for funding for the international financial institutions.

If we are forced to conclude that you will not accept the terms and conditions under which the legislation passed, we must make clear that - both as a matter of the personal preference of those of us signing this letter and as a practical matter from the standpoint of getting sufficient votes to pass these measures in the future - it will make it virtually impossible to provide further allocations for these institutions. That is, the policy of using signing statements to assert the right of the White House to ignore certain provisions of legislation regarding the IMF, the World Bank, and other international financial institutions may result not in the invalidation of those various provisions, but rather in insufficient Congressional support for further funding of these institutions.

REP. BARNEY FRANK
Chairman, House Financial Services Committee

REP. DAVID R. OBEY
Chairman, House Appropriations Committee

REP. NITA M. LOWEY
Chairman, House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

REP. GREGORY W. MEEKS
Chairman, House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy

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Comments

[S1m0n]

The United States has, by design, an oppositional relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government. This what the celebrated phrase, 'checks and balances' signifies.

Congress is able to pass laws which encroach on executive powers, and the executive can issue orders which do the same. When this happens, it's the responsibility of each of these players to defend their turf, with the assistance of the third branch, the courts. This congressional vs presidential power struggle is how the system is supposed to work, so we should give up acting all shocked and horrified about it. This is normal.

[1088]

I want my President Obama to get signing statement too! If it was good for Bush, then it's good for Obama.

[sarabono]

Is that sort of like "Was it good for you than it must have been good for me ?"

[falgiano]

Congress should ban signing statements. Ss's mangle/undermine constitutional checks

[Faithy]

NO TAXES Huh??? RIGHT!! Every single one of us is going to pay out the nose for Obama's grand ideas! You think the poor are going to be able to sustain any kind of lifestyle under his proposed taxing on every American??

Feds Prepare To Tax Toilet Paper
http://www.prisonplanet.com/feds-prepare-to-tax-toilet-paper-in-name-of-climate-change.html

Read just the section for TAXES - WOW!...SEC­. 4171. IMPOSITION OF TAX
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3202

[Billyboy321]

Just another broken campaign pledge and another bank-enrichment move by this admin.

[GeorgeP922]

Wow you obviously have no idea about checks and balances,

not your fault as you grew up in the Bush era.

What Obama is doing here is destroying on the record the ability for signing statements.
If he simply stopped doing it, there would be no precedent to retroactively deminish Bush's use of it.
Now it's on the record.

[Catothemuchyounger]

Uh, what? Do I understand you to be saying that by using signing statements, he is saying that signing statements cannot be used?

I would call this a doozy of a rationalization, except I can't quite work out the "rational" part.

[JoeAmerican]

Agreed. Congress should ban signing statements. Period.

[rollingdivision]

ROFL, so now all you lefties are willing to recognize signing statements are legal, constitutional and necessary. “Hatred is blind, as well as love.”

[GeorgeP922]

No we support our Congress is righting this.

Unlike you we believe in three branches of government.

[1088]

Signing Statements only belongs to the our beloved Bush, who got everything he wanted for 8 years from the Democrats. Good going Dems!

[joanjourne]

I'd like to read the Obama signing statement. Is it publicly available? If not, it should be.

[droog007]

Good cop/ bad cop routine...
or is it bad cop/ bad cop re reun?

[NickConrad]

This is like criticizing him for teleprompter use, and then comparing him to Bush. Unless the guy is abusing the power, get off his back and get this country working again, please.

[AmbientDiscord]

he tried to abuse it but this is a good warning to warn him before Obama gets ahead of himself.

[thromulese]

How about a signing statement repealing DOMA?

Oh wait. Obama defended it in court and in fact compared gay marriage to incest.

Nice touch.

Bush couldn’t have done it better.

[joanjourne]

Obama compared gay marriage to incest??

[WeMustSpeakOut]

In addition of his use of signing statements to cover up high crimes of the Bu$ies, CIA, et al, Obama has created a convenient "three-tiered "system of justice" for imprisoning accused Terrorists, to be determined by the Obama administration in each case" This will not only be used for the mess Bu$hie left in Guantanamo, but will be used for future, not-yet-abducted detainees as well.

"This is to be a permanent, institutionalized detention scheme with the power vested in the President going forward to imprison people with no charges".
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/21/detention/index.html

Obama seems to be enjoying the powers of the imperial presidency left to him by his predecessor.
To say the very least - this is not good.

[instagladiator]

The many precedences were set by your last POTUS and your "We the People..." did nothing. Now, your current POTUS is just using them to-the-max and will probably add a bunch of his own. What will your "We the People..." do?

[WeMustSpeakOut]

Excellent question.

[Sumocat]

Read the signing statement and the bill before you judge. The items cited in the signing statement are directives issued to the President's treasury secretary, not to the President himself, that fail to specify that the directives do not override the President's authority over his own cabinet. The signing statement did nothing more than clarify that oversight. The bill does contain directives to the President himself, but these are not cited in the signing statement. The President does heed the directives of the Congress, but his cabinet ultimately answers to him. This clarification is the extent of that signing statement.

[lj9283]

Oh come on, it's an issue that gives the Right Wingers a chance to tweak the lefties and get them to attack the President for supposed slights.

[instagladiator]

Are you suggesting that YOUR POTUS has authority of his own cabinet?

[instagladiator]

Sorry, " has authority over his own cabinet?"

[LJB064]

You make an excellent point - Congress needs to avoid imposing on the Constitutional prerogatives of the President.

However, in the case of a bill appropriating funds for international bodies, if the Congress wants to put certain conditions on that appropriation, it has no choice but to do so by giving specific directives to the Executive (which has the country's only operational links to international agencies, and thus the only ability to influence them).

I disagree that the signing statment does nothing more than clarify the chain of command. It uses the same language that Bush era signing statements used when President Bush's intention was to say "I have no intention of causing executive branch employees to carry out this law."

You may feel that President Obama does not have a similar intention. Looking at the affected sections, I hope that's true. He probably could have avoided this letter if he had evinced a willingness to carry out the goals of the legislation, while making his procedural point.

Instead, he left the Chairmen hanging, after they had apparently spent a lot of effort to craft a bill that could get passed in order to meet the President's desire to fund these international organizations (which are far from popular on the Hill at the moment).

He can jealously guard his prerogatives, if he wants to, but he's being warned that it may give his enemies the edge they need to defeat the next bill like this. Was that a wise choice?

[Katiebar]

Besides the signing statements themselves, the point is Obama made a direct statement assuring his supporters that he would not use them. Oooppps!

This is just one more example of misleading statements: transparency, no; bills on internet for 5 days before signing, no again, out of Iraq in 6 months, no, in fact we have a new escallation in Afganistan; no new taxes, here comes healthcare reform, if not cap and trade, etc.

Are we suppose to have short memories, or just be so enamored of the Show that we don't believe what we are seeing?

Obama and his administration appear to have no fear of debt. I think we need presidents to have some experience in the real world private sector in the future. It can't hurt.

[BarakCarpathia]

When will Obama reach across the aisle and truly work bipartisan.
Like Bush did with no child left behind and other things prior to 9-11.

[yliza]

He DID reach across the aisle. The result? Zero Republican votes on the stimulus.

[BarakCarpathia]

lol.
Reaching across the aisle would require some input from the opposition party. (ie Kennedy helping write no child left behind, prescription drug act had partners, etc.)

[StellaRay]

Joke question, right? Obama aggravated much of the left he reached out so many times---came up with an empty hand every time, with the exception of 3 republican votes. The GOP is not interested in working with dems to help this country. They are interested in getting their power back. Witness the congress man who said "if we can kill healthcare we can break Obama."

If the GOP was my party I'd be embarrassed and it seems many are---with only 23% willing to call themselves a republican.

[BarakCarpathia]

Before 9-11 bipartisan leadership.

On September 4, President George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 into law — the first federal act ever designed to address the problem of sexual assault in prisons.

The law, passed without opposition by both the Senate and House in July, creates a 9 member National Prison Rape Reduction Commission to investigate and report on the problem of rape in the nation’s prisons. In addition to providing for an annual Department of Justice review of prison rape rates, it provides funds for states to spend to prevent prison rape and prosecute alleged prison rapists.Th­e lead sponsors of the legislation were Sens. Jeff Sessions, R.-Ala., and Edward Kennedy, D.-Mass., and Reps. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., and Bobby Scott, D.-Va.

[nellie]

Signing statements are a no no. Whoever the president may be.

Can we just declare them unlawful and end the practice altogether?

[instagladiator]

A November 3, 1993 memo from White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum explained the use of signing statements to object to potentially unconstitutional legislation:

"If the President may properly decline to enforce a law, at least when it unconstitutionally encroaches on his powers, then it arguably follows that he may properly announce to Congress and to the public that he will not enforce a provision of an enactment he is signing. If so, then a signing statement that challenges what the President determines to be an unconstitutional encroachment on his power, or that announces the President's unwillingness to enforce (or willingness to litigate) such a provision, can be a valid and reasonable exercise of Presidential authority.­"

This same Department of Justice memorandum observed that use of Presidential signing statements to create legislative history for the use of the courts was uncommon before the Reagan and Bush Presidencies. In 1986, Attorney General Edwin Meese III entered into an arrangement with the West Publishing Company to have Presidential signing statements published for the first time in the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, the standard collection of legislative history.

Therein lies the problem.

[Mattie]

thanks Nellie, this is another example of what I said yesterday. When we say something is wrong when Republicans do it, we need to say it's wrong when Democrats do it. We can't have it both ways, and I see a lot of that here lately.