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{{Short description|Statement by US president when approving laws}}
{{Multiple issues|{{Update|date=June 2021}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2021}}}}[[File:Bush reagan.jpg|thumb|right|Presidents [[Ronald Reagan]] (left) and [[George H. W. Bush]] (right) issued significant numbers of signing statements containing constitutional objections to laws passed by Congress.]]
A '''signing statement''' is a written pronouncement issued by the [[President of the United States]] upon the signing of a [[Bill (proposed law)|bill]] into [[law]]. They are usually printed in the Federal Register's ''[[Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents|Compilation of Presidential Documents]]'' and the ''[[United States Code Congressional and Administrative News]]'' (USCCAN). The statements offer the president's view of the law or laws created by the bill.
There are two kinds of signing statements. One type, which is not controversial, consists only of political rhetoric or commentary, such as praising what the bill does and thanking Congress for enacting it. The other type, which has attracted significant controversy, is more technical or legalistic, and consists of the president's interpretations of the meaning of provisions of the bill—including claims that one or more sections are unconstitutional. The latter type usually amount to a claim that newly created legal restrictions on the executive branch or president are not binding and need not be enforced or obeyed as written.
During the administration of President [[George W. Bush]], there was a controversy over the President's use of signing statements to challenge numerous sections of bills as unconstitutional constraints on executive power; Bush used the device both to raise challenges to more provisions than all previous presidents combined had done, and to advance an unusually broad conception of presidential power. The Bush administration did not invent the practice, however: previous presidents had also used signing statements in that manner since the Reagan administration, and the succeeding [[Obama administration]]<ref name="Obama Signing Statements">{{cite press release|work=[[New York Times]]|date=August 9, 2009|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/us/politics/09signing.html?ref=todayspaper|title=Obama's Embrace of a Bush Tactic Riles Congress | first=Charlie | last=Savage | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref> also continued the practice. In August 2006, the [[American Bar Association]]'s house of delegates adopted a task force's conclusion that presidents should stop using signing statements to modify the meaning of duly enacted laws because the practice serves to "undermine the [[rule of law]] and our [[United States Constitution|constitutional]] system of [[separation of powers]]".<ref name="ABA Taskforce">{{cite press release|publisher=[[American Bar Association]] |date=July 24, 2006 |url=http://www.abanow.org/2006/07/blue-ribbon-task-force-finds-president-bushs-signing-statements-undermine-separation-of-powers/ |title=Blue-Ribbon Task Force Finds President Bush's Signing Statements Undermine Separation of Powers |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120615163547/http://www.abanow.org/2006/07/blue-ribbon-task-force-finds-president-bushs-signing-statements-undermine-separation-of-powers/ |archive-date=June 15, 2012 }}</ref>
== Types ==
A study released by then-Assistant Attorney General [[Walter Dellinger]] (1993–1996) grouped signing statements into three categories:<ref name=Dellinger>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010219034253/http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm |archive-date=February 19, 2001 |url=http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/signing.htm |title=The Legal Significance of Presidential Signing Statements |date=November 3, 1993 |first=Walter |last=Dellinger |work=[[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] website }}</ref>
* Constitutional: asserts that the law is constitutionally defective in order to guide executive agencies in limiting its implementation;
* Political: defines vague terms in the law to guide executive agencies in its implementation as written;
* Rhetorical: uses the signing of the bill to mobilize political constituencies.
In recent usage, the phrase "signing statement" has referred mostly to statements by a president declaring that certain new statutes he has signed into law are unconstitutional and so do not need to be enforced or obeyed, and directing, explicitly or implicitly, executive branch departments and agencies to interpret the new statutes in the same way.
Critics, including the American Bar Association, have contended that this practice amounts to a line-item veto because it allows a president to accept the parts of a bill he likes while rejecting other parts that lawmakers bundled together with those parts, except that it gives Congress no ability to vote to override a veto. (The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] has held that line-item vetos are unconstitutional in a 1998 case, ''[[Clinton v. City of New York]]''.<ref>[http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/dean/20060113.html The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements: Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060214054249/http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=%2Fdean%2F20060113.html|date=2006-02-14}} By John W. Dean, [http://www.findlaw.com/ FindLaw], January 13, 2006.</ref>) Supporters of signing statements have contended that the practice is necessary as a matter of political reality because Congress frequently passes large bills that cover many topics and may have small flaws, and that it would cripple government for a president to veto such legislation over the small flaws.
==Applying a metric to signing statements==
There is a controversy about how to count an [[executive (government)|executive]]'s use of signing statements.<ref>[http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060714.html Bush Administration's Adversarial Relationship with Congress – as Illustrated by Its Refusal to Even Provide the Number of Signing Statements Issued by President Bush], by John Dean (see section "Non-Government Witnesses Are Not Certain How Many Signing Statements Bush Has Issued; And the Executive Branch Refuses to Reveal the Number")</ref>
One complexity centers on what counts as a ''relevant'' signing statement. A counting of the total number of bill signing statements by any particular president that included purely rhetorical and political messages about legislation would result in a misleading number for the purpose of a discussion about signing statements that make constitutional challenges to sections of the bills being enacted into law.
Another complexity centers on whether what matters is the number of bills to which a signing statement has been appended, or the number of challenges to newly created sections of statutory code. For example, Congress could pass three short bills about discrete topics, each of a president signed but challenged with three different signing statements. Or Congress could bundle the same legislative language into a single bill with three sections, about which a president could issue one signing statement that made three discrete challenges. As a matter of legal substance, the result is the same—three challenges to new sections of law—but the latter could be measured as one or three presidential acts.
A [[Congressional Research Service]] report issued on September 17, 2007,<ref name="CRS">[http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33667.pdf Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and Institutional Implications], Congressional Research Service, September 17, 2007.</ref> compared the total number of presidents' signing statements that made any constitutional objection to at least one part of a bill—regardless of how many bill sections were flagged—to the total number of issued by presidents, including those what were purely rhetorical or political messages. By that metric, it made the following findings:
{{Blockquote|President Reagan issued 250 signing statements, 86 of which (34%) contained provisions objecting to one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President George H. W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 228 signing statements, 107 of which (47%) raised objections. President [Bill] Clinton's conception of presidential power proved to be largely consonant with that of the preceding two administrations. In turn, President Clinton made aggressive use of the signing statement, issuing 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised constitutional or legal objections. President George W. Bush has continued this practice, issuing 152 signing statements, 118 of which (78%) contain some type of challenge or objection.<ref name="CRS" />}}
In March 2009, ''[[The New York Times]]'' cited a different metric. It ignored purely rhetorical or political messaging statements, while counting the number of challenges to sections within bills to which presidents made constitutional objections regardless of how many bills and accompanying statements were involved. By that metric, it recounted the following findings:
{{Blockquote|Mr. [George W.] Bush ... broke all records, using signing statements to challenge about 1,200 sections of bills over his eight years in office, about twice the number challenged by all previous presidents combined, according to data compiled by Christopher Kelley, a political science professor at Miami University in Ohio.<ref>{{cite news |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/politics/10signing.html?_r=1 |title=Obama Looks to Limit Impact of Tactic Bush Used to Sidestep New Laws |author= Charlie Savage |date=March 9, 2009|author-link = Charlie Savage (author)}}</ref>}}
==Legal significance==
No provision of the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]], federal statute, or common-law principle explicitly permits or prohibits signing statements. However, there is also no part of the Constitution that grants legal value to signing statements. [[Article One of the United States Constitution|Article I]], [[Article One of the United States Constitution#Section 7: Bills|Section 7]] (in the [[Presentment Clause]]) empowers the president to veto a law in its entirety, to sign it, or to do nothing. [[Article Two of the United States Constitution|Article II]], [[Article Two of the United States Constitution#Section 3: Presidential responsibilities|Section 3]] requires that the executive "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". The Constitution does not authorize the President to cherry-pick which parts of validly enacted Congressional Laws he is going to obey and execute, and which he is not. The complexity is that if a section of U.S. code is not constitutional, then by definition it was not validly enacted. One part of the debate, then, is whether it is proper for a particular president to sign into law a statutory section that he considered at the time to be invalid, while declaring that he will not consider it binding, rather than vetoing the entire bill and sending it back to Congress.
Signing statements do not appear to have legal force outside the executive branch by themselves, although they are all published by the ''[[Federal Register]]''. As a practical matter, those that announce a president's interpretations of—or constitutional objections to—newly enacted statutes amount, implicitly or explicitly, of instructions to subordinate government officials to interpret the new laws the same way. There is a controversy about whether they should be considered as part of [[legislative history]].
Presidential signing statements maintain particular potency with federal executive agencies, since these agencies are often responsible for the administration and enforcement of federal laws. A 2007 article in the ''[[Administrative Law Review]]'' noted how some federal agencies' usage of signing statements may not withstand legal challenges under common law standards of judicial deference to agency action.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Nicholas J. |last=Leddy |title=Determining Due Deference: Examining When Courts Should Defer to Agency Use of Presidential Signing Statements |journal=[[Administrative Law Review]] |volume=59 |issue=4 |page=869 |year=2007 }}</ref>
===Supreme Court rulings===
The [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] has not squarely addressed the limits of signing statements. ''[[Marbury v. Madison]]'' (
===Presidential usage===
The first [[President of the United States|president]] to issue a signing statement was [[James Monroe]].<ref name="KelleyDiss">{{cite thesis |last=Kelley
The upswing in the use of signing statements during the Reagan administration coincides with the writing by [[Samuel Alito]] – then a staff attorney in the [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]]'s [[Office of Legal Counsel]] – of a 1986 memorandum making the case for "interpretive signing statements" as a tool to "increase the power of the Executive to shape the law". Alito proposed adding signing statements to a "reasonable number of bills" as a pilot project, but warned that "Congress is likely to resent the fact that the President will get in the last word on questions of interpretation."<ref>{{cite web |first=Samuel |last=Alito |url=https://www.archives.gov/news/samuel-alito/accession-060-89-269/Acc060-89-269-box6-SG-LSWG-AlitotoLSWG-Feb1986.pdf |title=Using Presidential Signing Statement to Make Fuller Use of the President's Constitutionally Assigned Role in the Process of Enacting Law |publisher=Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice |date=February 5, 1986 |access-date=July 23, 2006}}</ref>
A November 3, 1993, memo from White House Counsel [[Bernard W. Nussbaum|Bernard Nussbaum]] explained the use of signing statements to object to potentially unconstitutional legislation:
{{Blockquote|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.<ref name=Dellinger />}}
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]] 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
=== Blue ribbon panel on signing statements ===
On July 24, 2006, the [[American Bar Association]]'s Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine, appointed by ABA President [[Michael S. Greco]], issued a widely publicized report condemning some uses of signing statements. The task force report and recommendations were unanimously approved by ABA delegates at their August 2006 meeting.<ref name="ABA Taskforce" />
The bipartisan and independent [[blue-ribbon panel]] was chaired by Miami lawyer [[Neal Sonnett]], a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division for the Southern District of Florida. He is past chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, chair of the ABA Task Force on Domestic Surveillance and the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants; and president-elect of the American Judicature Society.
<!-- This is a lengthy stretch of material not directly related to the article. Should probably be moved to an article on the panel itself?
In addition to Chair Sonnett, the task force members included:
* '''William S. Sessions''', now in private practice in Washington, D.C., is a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, chief U.S. District Court judge for the Western District of Texas, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, and chief of the Government Operations Section of the U.S. Department of Justice.
* '''Patricia M. Wald''', most recently a member of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, is a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and trial and appellate judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She was an assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in the Carter Administration.
* '''Former Rep. Mickey Edwards''', a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership, served in the House Republican Leadership as a member of Congress from 1977–1992, was a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, former national chair of the American Conservative Union, and director of policy advisory task forces for the Reagan presidential campaign.
* '''Bruce Fein''', a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with The Lichfield Group, was associate deputy attorney general and assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy of the Department of Justice under President Reagan. He also served as general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, and a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation.
* '''Dean and professor Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School''' is one of the country's leading experts on international human rights and national security law. A former assistant secretary of state, Koh advised former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright on U.S. policy on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and also served as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice.
* '''Charles Ogletree''', the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org), named in honor of the visionary lawyer who spearheaded the litigation in Brown v. Board of Education, opened in September 2005, and focuses on a variety of issues relating to race and justice, and will sponsor research, hold conferences, and provide policy analysis.
* '''Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg''' of George Washington University Law School was associate independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation and deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. He is the incoming chair-elect of the ABA Criminal Justice Section and serves in the association’s House of Delegates.
* '''Professor Kathleen M. Sullivan''' of Stanford Law School, was dean of the school for five years. She heads Stanford's Constitutional Law Center, has taught at Harvard and University of Southern California law schools, and is a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center. A nationally known constitutional law expert, she is co-author of a leading casebook in constitutional law.
* '''Mark Agrast''', a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., is formerly counsel and legislative director to Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.) and aide to Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.). He is a member of the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association, chairs the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession, and is a past chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities.
* '''Tom Susman''', a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, has served as general counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and several of its subcommittees, and in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the ABA House of Delegates, past chair of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and has served on the ABA Board of Governors.
* '''Alan Rothstein''' was an advisor to the task force. He is general counsel to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and coordinates the extensive law reform and public policy work of that 22,000-member association. He also serves in the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates.-->
The report stated in part:
{{Blockquote|Among those unanimous recommendations, the Task Force voted to:
*oppose, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of [[separation of powers]], a President's issuance of signing statements to claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress;
*urge the President, if he believes that any provision of a bill pending before Congress would be unconstitutional if enacted, to communicate such concerns to Congress prior to passage;
*urge the President to confine any signing statements to his views regarding the meaning, purpose, and significance of bills, and to use his veto power if he believes that all or part of a bill is unconstitutional;
*urge Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements, and to report to Congress the reasons and legal basis for any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, and to make all such submissions be available in a publicly accessible database.{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}}}
===Congressional efforts to restrict signing statements===
Sen. [[Arlen Specter]] (then a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] of [[Pennsylvania]]) introduced the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2006 on July 26, 2006.<ref name="thomas.loc.gov">{{Cite web |url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.03731: |title=Search Results - Thomas (Library of Congress)<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2006-09-14 |archive-date=2008-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218172637/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.03731: |url-status=dead }}</ref> The bill would:
# Instruct all state and federal courts to ignore presidential signing statements. ("No State or Federal court shall rely on or defer to a presidential signing statement as a source of authority.")
# Instruct the Supreme Court to allow the [[U.S. Senate]] or [[U.S. House of Representatives]] to file suit in order to determine the constitutionality of signing statements.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.3731: |title=Search Results – Thomas (Library of Congress)<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2006-09-14 |archive-date=2008-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218172641/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.3731: |url-status=dead }}</ref>
The bill was referred to the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], which Specter chaired at the time, on the day it was introduced.<ref name="thomas.loc.gov" /> As with all unpassed bills, it expired with the end of the [[109th United States Congress]] on December 9, 2006.
Specter reintroduced the legislation with the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007, but it died in the same committee.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1747: |title=Search Results – Thomas (Library of Congress)<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2007-07-16 |archive-date=2016-07-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160703203132/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1747: |url-status=dead }}</ref>
== Signing statements by administrations ==
=== Bush administration ===<!-- this subsection is targeted by name in [[2007 Pulitzer Prize]] -->
George W. Bush's use of signing statements was and is controversial, both for the number of bill sections he challenged—more than 1,200, or twice as many as all previous presidents combined—and for the broad view of executive power that he used the device to advance. Most famously, he used a signing statement in December 2005 to assert that because he was the commander-in-chief and head of the so-called unitary executive branch, a new law purporting to ban torture was unconstitutional.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bush could bypass new torture ban - The Boston Globe |url=http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/04/bush_could_bypass_new_torture_ban/ |access-date=2023-03-12 |website=archive.boston.com |language=en}}</ref> That statement, appended to the [[Detainee Treatment Act of 2005]], specifically challenged, among others, a provision prohibiting cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody with the following language:<blockquote>The executive branch shall construe... the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief ... [an approach that] 'will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."</blockquote>
The use of signing statements that fall into the constitutional category can create conundrums for executive branch employees. Political scientist James Pfiffner has written:
<blockquote>The president is the head of the executive branch, and in general, executive branch officials are bound to follow his direction. In cases in which a subordinate is ordered to do something illegal, the person can legitimately refuse the order. But if the public administrator is ordered to refuse to execute the law ... because the president has determined that the law infringes on his own interpretation of his constitutional authority, the public administrator faces an ethical dilemma.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Pfiffner|first=James P.|date=March–April 2009|title=Presidential Signing Statements and Their Implications for Public Administration|url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121673713/PDFSTART|journal=Public Administration Review|publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]]|volume=69|issue=2|pages=251|doi=10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.01971.x|access-date=2009-08-19|doi-access=free}}{{dead link|date=February 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
</ref></blockquote>
=== Obama administration===
On March 9, 2009, President [[Barack Obama]] ordered his executive officials to consult [[Attorney General of the United States|Attorney General]] [[Eric Holder]] before relying on one of [[George W. Bush]]'s signing statements to bypass a statute.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/politics/10signing.html | work=The New York Times | title=Obama Looks to Limit Impact of Tactic Bush Used to Sidestep New Laws | first=Charlie | last=Savage | date=March 10, 2009 | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref> He stated that he only planned to use signing statements when given legislation by [[United States Congress|Congress]] which contain [[Constitutionality|unconstitutional]] provisions. In a memo to the heads of each department in the [[United States Executive Branch|executive branch]], Obama wrote:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-on-Presidential-Signing-Statements|title=Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies SUBJECT: Presidential Signing Statements|author=Barack Obama|date=March 9, 2009|via=[[NARA|National Archives]]|work=[[whitehouse.gov]]|access-date=24 November 2009}}</ref>
<blockquote>In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded.</blockquote>
During his presidential campaign, Obama rejected the use of signing statements. He was asked at one rally: "when congress offers you a bill, do you promise not to use presidential signing statements to get your way?" Obama gave a one-word reply: "Yes."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://opiniojuris.org/2009/07/01/did-anyone-oppose-signing-statements-just-koh-the-aba-and-some-guy-named-barack/|title = Is Obama Really Hypocritical on Signing Statements? Yup|date = July 2009}}</ref> He added that "we aren't going to use signing statements as a way to do an end run around Congress." On March 11, 2009, Obama issued his first signing statement, attached to the [[omnibus spending bill]] for the second half of the 2009 fiscal year.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/obama-pushes-for-new-earmark-rules/ | work=The New York Times | title=Obama Pushes for New Earmark Rules | date=March 11, 2009 | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|Numerous provisions of the legislation purport to condition the authority of officers to spend or reallocate funds on the approval of congressional committees. These are impermissible forms of legislative aggrandizement in the execution of the laws other than by enactment of statutes. Therefore, although my Administration will notify the relevant committees before taking the specified actions, and will accord the recommendations of such committees all appropriate and serious consideration, spending decisions shall not be treated as dependent on the approval of congressional committees. Likewise, one other provision gives congressional committees the power to establish guidelines for funding costs associated with implementing security improvements to buildings. Executive officials shall treat such guidelines as advisory.
Yet another provision requires the Secretary of the Treasury to accede to all requests of a Board of Trustees that contains congressional representatives. The Secretary shall treat such requests as nonbinding.}}
This statement indicated that while the administration could ignore several provisions of the bill, they would advise congressional committees, and take congressional committees' guidelines as advisory, as he considered that "provisions of the legislation purport to condition the authority of officers to spend or reallocate funds on the approval of congressional committees" and the result would be "impermissible forms of legislative aggrandizement in the execution of the laws other than by enactment of statutes", including sections dealing with negotiations with foreign governments, restrictions on US involvement in UN peacekeeping missions, protections for government whistleblowers, and certain congressional claims of authority over spending.<ref>{{cite news |first=Chris |last=Good |title=Obama Issues Omnibus Signing Statement |work=[[The Atlantic]] |date=March 11, 2009 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/03/obama-issues-omnibus-signing-statement/1438/ }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/obama-issues-his-first-signing-statement.php|title=Category: DC}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/politics/12signing.html | work=The New York Times | title=Obama Says He Can Ignore Some Parts of Spending Bill | first=Charlie | last=Savage | date=March 12, 2009 | access-date=May 23, 2010}}</ref> Obama issued a total of 37 signing statements during the course of his presidency.<ref>{{cite web
| title = List of President Obama's Signing Statements
| last = Green
| first = Joyce
| url = http://www.coherentbabble.com/listBHOall.htm
| access-date = 2017-01-26}}
</ref><ref>{{cite news
| last = Phillips
| first = Kate
| title = Obama Signs Financial Bill, Creating Investigative Panel
| newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
| date = 2009-05-20
| url = https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/signing-statements/?scp=3&sq=signing%20statement&st=Search
| access-date = 2009-06-27}}
</ref><ref>{{cite news
| last = Savage
| first = Charlie
| title = Obama Issues Signing Statement With Public Lands Bill
| newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
| date = 2009-05-30
| url = https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/obama-issues-signing-statement-with-public-lands-bill/
| access-date = 2009-06-27}}
</ref><ref>{{cite news
| last = Savage
| first = Charlie
| title = A Bill Signing, With Reservations
| newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
| date = 2009-06-27
| url = https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/a-bill-signing-with-reservations/
| access-date = 2009-06-27}}
</ref><ref>{{cite news
| last = Tapper
| first = Jake
| title = President Obama Issues "Signing Statement" Indicating He Won't Abide by Provision in Budget Bill
| publisher = [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]
| date = 2011-04-15
| url = http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/04/president-obama-issues-signing-statement-indicating-he-wont-abide-by-provision-in-budget-bill.html
| access-date = 2011-04-16}}
</ref><ref>{{cite web
| title = Presidential Signing Statements from Hoover to Obama
| last = Woolley
| first = John
| publisher = UCSB
| url = http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php?year=2008&Submit=DISPLAY#axzz1PMl5WD00
| access-date = 2011-06-14}}
</ref>
==Non-signing statement==
The "non-signing statement" is a related method that some presidents have used to express concerns about certain provisions in a bill without vetoing it.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Ross |last=Wilson |title=A Third Way: The Presidential Non-Signing Statement |journal=[[Cornell Law Review]] |volume=96 |issue=6 |year=2011 |ssrn=1593862 }}</ref> With the non-signing statement, presidents announce their reasons for declining to sign, while allowing the bill to become law unsigned. The U.S. Constitution allows such enactments by default: if the President does not sign the bill, it becomes law after ten days, excepting Sundays, "[[Pocket veto#United States|unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return...]]"<ref>U.S. Const. art. I, § 7</ref>
Some governors in U.S. states have also used a non-signing statement to express reservations about a measure while allowing it to proceed.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Christopher Cadelago |author2=Jim Miller |title=California campaign finance measure booted off ballot |url=https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article2606421.html |access-date=September 16, 2023 |work=The Sacramento Bee |date=August 12, 2014}}</ref>
==See also==
{{Portal|United States|Politics|Law}}
* {{section link|Enabling act|United States}}
*[[List of United States federal executive orders]]
*[[Presidential proclamation]]
*[[Reservation (law)]]
*[[Unitary executive theory]]
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last=Berry |first=Michael J. |title=Controversially Executing the Law: George W. Bush and the Constitutional Signing Statement |journal=Congress & the Presidency |volume=36 |year=2009 |issue=3 |pages=244–71 |doi=10.1080/07343460903173414 |s2cid=154741337 }}
*{{cite journal |last=Conley |first=Richard S. |title=Signing On and Sounding Off: Presidential Signing Statements in the Eisenhower Administration, 1953–1961 |journal=Congress & the Presidency |volume=40 |year=2013 |pages=61–83 |doi=10.1080/07343469.2013.753818 |s2cid=153659674 }}
*{{cite book |ref=Gore2007 |last=Gore |first=Al |year=2007 |title=The Assault on Reason |url=https://archive.org/details/assaultonreason00gore |url-access=registration |___location=New York |publisher=The Penguin Press |isbn=978-1-59420-122-6 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Ostrander |first1=Ian |first2=Joel |last2=Sievert |year=2013 |title=The Logic of Presidential Signing Statements |journal=[[Political Research Quarterly]] |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=141–153 |doi=10.1177/1065912911434357 |s2cid=153792748 }}
==External links==
*[http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33667.pdf Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and Institutional Implications], Congressional Research Service, September 17, 2007
*[http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php?year=2006&Submit=DISPLAY Presidential Signing Statements] Browsable database of signing statements from 1929 through the present. Added on June 30, 2006.
*[http://www.cpeo.org/lists/military/1999/msg00447.html DoD Bill Signing Statement] Example of a signing statement issued by President [[Bill Clinton]] on November 4, 1999.
*[
*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/01/AR2006010100788.html Alito Once Made Case For Presidential Power] By Christopher Lee. [[Washington Post]]. January 2, 2006. (Discussing encouragement of the use of signing statements by [[Samuel Alito]] when he worked in the administration of former president [[Ronald Reagan]])
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/politics/16letter.html For President, Final Say on a Bill Sometimes Comes After the Signing] By Elisabeth Bumiller. The New York Times. January 16, 2006.
*[http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/
*[http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6539 The Problem With Presidential Signing Statements] by [[Richard Allen Epstein|Richard A. Epstein]], [[Cato Institute]], July 18, 2006.
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20060505045749/http://www.boston.com:80/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/?page=full Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws] By [[Charlie Savage (author)|Charlie Savage]]. [[The Boston Globe]]. April 30, 2006. (A detailed look at five years of specific signing statement claims.)
*[http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/10/06/bush_cites_authority_to_bypass_fema_law/?page=1 "Bush cites authority to bypass FEMA law"] by [[Charlie Savage (author)|Charlie Savage]]. ''The Boston Globe'', October 6, 2006
*[http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/14/1palmer.pdf?rd=1 Reinterpreting Torture: Presidential Signing Statements and the Circumvention of U.S. and International Law] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703005624/http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/14/1palmer.pdf?rd=1 |date=2007-07-03 }} by Erin Louise Palmer. Human Rights Brief (Fall 2006).
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