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“SIGNING STATEMENTS” or “STATEMENTS ON SIGNING”
LexisNexis® recently added Statements on Signing. “Signing Statements” or “Statements on Signing” are written statements from the President or a Governor issued when signing a Bill into law. Statements on Signing are a hot topic in the news because President George W. Bush has used over 750 of these statements during his tenure in office. This is about 25% more than all previous presidents combined.
Past presidents have often used these statements to express their pleasure at signing a particular Bill. Some presidents have expressed some displeasure with the bill, but made no comment about its constitutionality or how the president would execute the law. Beginning with President Reagan, presidents began stating how they interpreted the Bill and how they would execute it. President George W. Bush is seemingly declaring Bills, and parts thereof, to be invalid and essentially refusing to execute them. One example is the statement that accompanied his signing of Public Law 109-148 (109 H.R. 2863 – signed by the President on December 30, 2005), which contains an Amendment introduced by Senator John McCain of Arizona dealing with the treatment of detainees (The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005).
Signing Statements can be found by going to:
Legal > Federal Legal - U.S. > Executive Branch Materials > Public Papers of the Presidents (LEGIS; PRESDC) and running the following search: Headline(Statement w/2 Signing). NOTE: Not all Signing Statements are contained in this file.
A common term used by the presidents when they are seemingly disregarding the language of the Bill and interjecting their own, is “purports.” For instance, presidents often say “this Act purports to…” |
