Specter takes step to halt Bush signing statements

WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter yesterday introduced legislation that would allow Congress to sue President Bush over his use of signing statements to claim the power to bypass laws, saying that lawmakers must push back against a White House power grab.

``The president cannot use a signing statement to rewrite the words of a statute, nor can the president use a signing statement to selectively nullify those provisions he does not like," the Pennsylvania Republican said. ``This much is clear from our Constitution."

Specter's ``Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006" would give either the House of Representatives or the Senate the legal standing to challenge a disputed signing statement in federal court. The lawsuit would ultimately allow the Supreme Court to consider whether the statements -- and the legal claims the president has made in them -- are constitutional.

Specter's bill would also instruct courts to ignore presidential signing statements when interpreting the meaning of a statute.

Specter floated the idea for such a bill after holding a hearing on signing statements last month. His legislation comes two days after an American Bar Association task force issued a report portraying the use of signing statements as a threat to the Constitution's checks and balances system of government. The task force also urged Congress to pass a law granting the courts jurisdiction to review statements.

Both Specter and the task force argued that, when it comes to legislation, presidents have only two options under the Constitution: Sign a bill and enforce all its provisions, or veto it and give Congress a chance to change the bill or override the veto. Presidents must stop signing a bill and then declaring pieces of it to be unconstitutional and thus nonbinding, they said.

``Any action by the president that circumvents this finely structured procedure is an unconstitutional attempt to usurp legislative authority," Specter said yesterday. ``If the president is permitted to rewrite the bills that Congress passes and cherry-pick which provisions he likes and does not like, he subverts the constitutional process designed by our framers."

The Bush administration has defended its use of signing statements as a practical way to deal with Congress's habit of lumping many unrelated laws together in a single bill, some of which may be urgently needed. It is better to sign such legislation and challenge a few parts of it, defenders say, than to veto the entire package.

Michelle Boardman, a Justice Department attorney, noted yesterday on the Boston-based NPR news program ``On Point" that previous presidents of both parties have used signing statements. She portrayed the practice as unremarkable and suggested that the recent controversy over it is overblown.

``I am not losing sleep over it," Boardman said. ``The practice has a historical pedigree as long as the day."

But the ABA task force report noted that the current administration has taken the use of signing statements to a new level. The previous 41 presidents combined challenged a total of about 600 laws; in contrast, Bush has challenged more than 800 laws in just 5 1/2 years in office.

At the same time, Bush has all but abandoned his veto power, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Earlier this month, Bush vetoed his first bill. Not since the 1800s has a president been in office so long with so little use of the veto pen.

The laws Bush has challenged with signing statements include a ban on torture, stricter oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, restrictions against using US troops to fight rebels in Colombia, requirements that his agencies provide information to Congress, and various affirmative action programs.

The White House has based many of these challenges on an aggressive theory of presidential power that they say puts Bush beyond the reach of Congress in most areas of military affairs and executive-branch operations. Most legal scholars say that the administration is wrong, and Bush's use of signing statements to advance that theory has attracted increased scrutiny in recent months.

Last month, for example, the Constitution Project, a bipartisan group of former government officials, judges, and scholars, issued a report calling on Bush to stop using signing statements to undermine his obligation to follow the laws that Congress has passed. Yesterday, Constitution Project president Virginia Sloan urged Congress to quickly pass Specter's bill.

``Congress must step up to the plate and carry out its role as a separate, independent, and equal branch of government," Sloan said.

It was unclear, however, whether the political will exists in the GOP-controlled Congress to pass the bill in an election year. ABA president Michael Greco , a Boston lawyer, said yesterday that he hopes lawmakers will embrace the concept of putting a check on signing statements.

``I am very hopeful that this Congress will understand the gravity of the risks to our system of checks and balances if Congress does not act to take the lead," Greco said. ``This is, after all, Congress's role that is being diminished by these signing statements. It harms not only the Congress but the country as a whole if we have a diminished constitutional government."