Globe/Savage: Group opposes loss of signing statements [View All]

[Rose Siding]

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | August 5, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A group of former Clinton administration lawyers are urging the American Bar Association to reject its panel's call for presidents to stop issuing ``signing statements" that reserve the right to bypass laws, saying the problem is with President Bush's use of such statements, not the mechanism itself.

The ABA's 550-member House of Delegates will vote next week on endorsing a high-profile task force's conclusion that the Constitution gives presidents two choices: veto a bill, or sign it and enforce all of it. As the vote nears, several law professors who helped draft signing statements for President Clinton have emerged as critics of the task force's recommendations.
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``It is a mistake . . . to respond to these abuses by denying to this and future presidents the essential authority, in appropriate and limited circumstances, to decline to execute unconstitutional laws," Dellinger wrote.

He has also joined several other Clinton Justice Department officials in writing a lengthy essay accusing the ABA task force of distorting the issue out of a desire to appear bipartisan. The group, which posted its essay on several prominent blogs this week, includes professors Martin Lederman of Georgetown, David Barron of Harvard, Dawn Johnsen of Indiana, and Neil Kinkopf of Georgia State.

They argued that because Congress often lumps many laws into a single bill, it is sometimes impractical to veto the entire package because a few components have minor constitutional problems. Take away signing statements, they said, and presidents probably still will sign such bills -- only the public won't know that some parts of the bill may not be enforced.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/08/05/group_opposes_loss_of_signing_statements/