Will Dubya's signing statements apply to future presidents, too?

[Orrex]

Or do they expire with his Presidency? Or do they lapse when the War On Terra is over? If the latter, is he likely to declare the war over sometime in early '09, before a newly-elected Democrat can take over the Oval Office?

[magellan]

1. Since the legislation does

...I'd guess the signing statements do as well. But I'm no expert on such things.

[OneBlueSky]

2. legally, I don't believe they apply to ANYONE . . .

is there any law that allows presidents to issue "signing statements" that contradict/expand on/change legislation passed by Congress? . . . not that I know of . . .

[madokie]

9. only in bush*world

[WI_DEM]

3. I think any president could attempt this type of thing--Bush never got

any kind of authorization. There is no authorized "War on Terror" either and if Bush declared the war over before leaving office without Bin Ladden or his network destroyed he'd be laughed off.

[Orrex]

5. Didn't BushOne and Clinton issued a few signing statements, too?

Certainly not on every piece of legislation to pass their desk, but it would be vaguely comforting to know that BushTwo didn't make the whole thing up on his own.

Still, it seems to me that any signing statement is, in effect, a rewriting of the bill and as such should require a new approving vote by the Congress. Otherwise, the President is granting himself the authority to write laws by fiat.

[spanone]

8. No One has questioned bush* over this either. Hello New Congress!!!!

[napi21]

4. If you ever listen to Turley, the Professor of Constitutional Law at

Georgetown, when he's on Countdown, the signing statements are unconstitutional. The President takes only ONE oath when he takes office, and it is to uphold law of the Constitution. He has NO OPTION to state he will only uphold or enforce some of them! I don't think this issue has ever been challenged in our courts, so Shrub keeps on doing them. I'm hoping since the Dems have taken the majority, a lot of these idiot things he's doing will be challenged and shot down!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. They have no binding authority.

The President has pretty broad leeway in how the Executive branch conducts its affairs

It's hard to tell how many of the signing statements Bush has even implemented. We have no way of knowing how many of them he's actually implemented and how many he's used just as an excuse to go "nyah!" to Congress.

Man, I would not want to be the next President. It's going to be an awaful goddamn mess to clean up.

[Robbien]

7. Presidential Signing statements are instructions on how to interpret the law

The Supreme Court has paid close attention to presidential signing statements. Other federal courts have taken note of them too.

So to answer your question, when a case comes before a federal court the federal/supreme court judge will rule on the case taking into consideration presidential signing statements. The signing statements are valid as long as the laws it amends.

[onenote]

10. Reliance by the courts on statements actually is pretty rare

And in fact, the only times I can recall the Supreme Court citing one are a couple of recent dissents authored by Scalia (and joined in by Thomas, I believe). There have been a few Court of Appeals cases relying on signing statements as an interpretive tool, dating back to LBJ, particularly where the executive branch was shown to have played a major role in the drafting of the legislation. There also are cases rejecting the use of signing statements as a tool for statutory interpretation for much the same reasons that post-enactment statements by members of Congress often are rejected as legitiate tools of statutory construction.

[ThomWV]

11. W's Signing Statements Apply To No One

Only in his imagination or a world ruled by him do those statements hold any weight at all.