Presidential Power Asserted: The Rise of Signing Statements
President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese on this day succeeded in elevating the status of presidential signing statements by persuading the law publisher West Publishing to include them in the legislative history of acts of Congress.
While signing statements had always been an obscure and unimportant part of the legislative process, this maneuver was part of a conservative strategy to undermine legislation passed by Congress, which at this time was dominated by Democrats. The strategy was to have presidential doubts and reservations placed in the official record for possible use at some future time.
President George W. Bush (2001–2009) made systematic use of signing statements, in which he stated that he would enforce certain provisions of laws in accordance with his authority as Commander in Chief — which was to say that he would not enforce those provisions. His heavy use of signing statements was exposed by reporter Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe on April 30, 2006. The story provoked a national controversy over President Bush’s abuse of power.
Read the path-breaking book by Charlie Savage: Charlie Savage, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (2007)
Read the American Bar Association Statement on Signing Statements: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/leadership/2006/annual/dailyjournal/20060823144113.authcheckdam.pdf