Kill the Lawyers

The Boston Globe, which has been in the forefront in exposing Bush's so-called "signing statements," has now reported, in Panel chides Bush on bypassing laws:

President Bush should stop issuing statements claiming the power to bypass parts of laws he has signed, an American Bar Association task force has unanimously concluded in a strongly worded 32-page report that is scheduled to be released . . . .

``The president's constitutional duty is to enforce laws he has signed into being, unless and until they are held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court," the report said. ``The Constitution is not what the president says it is."

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The task force chairman and a former federal prosecutor, Neal Sonnett, said he hoped the House of Delegates would back the panel's call to roll back the use of presidential signing statements.

``The recommendations that we make are an effort to correct practices that, if they continue, threaten to throw this country into a constitutional crisis," Sonnett said.

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In an interview, [Mickey] Edwards [a former member of Congress from Oklahoma] said the findings should be understood as rising above the politics of the moment. ``It's not about Bush; it's about what should be the responsibility of a president," Edwards said. ``We are saying that the president of the United States has an obligation to follow the Constitution and exercise only the authority the Constitution gives him. That's a central tenet of American conservatism -- to constrain the centralization of power."

As Dick Polman explains, in Bush and the rule of law, next chapter:

It has been clear for a long time that President Bush doesn’t like lawyers . . . . So he undoubtedly will dislike the blue-ribbon report released today by the American Bar Association, which assails him as a threat to democracy, “a threat to the rule of law,” and as a president who disrespects “our constitutional system of separation of powers.” Most likely he’ll just ignore it, but I happen to think this report will be of interest to millions of his fellow citizens.

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In other words, these pillars of the legal establishment are arguing that this particular president is potentially wreaking havoc with the Constitution, and that the only way to thwart him is for Congress to take drastic action that could put it on a collision course with the White House. I haven’t heard talk like this from the legal establishment since Richard Nixon's executive excesses during Watergate.

“This report,” says ABA president Michael Greco, “raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy. If left unchecked, the president’s practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances, that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries. Immediate action is required to address this threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law in our country.” (Emphasis added).

See also this video, ABA Blasts the Specter NSA Bill, of ABA President Michael Greco announcing the panel's findings.

A NY Times article, Legal Group Says Bush Undermines Law by Ignoring Select Parts of Bills, also notes the strongly worded rebuke of Bush:

The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.

In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.

These broad assertions of presidential power amount to a “line-item veto” and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto, the panel said.

In signing a statutory ban on torture and other national security laws, Mr. Bush reserved the right to disregard them.

The bar association panel said the use of signing statements in this way was “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.” From the dawn of the Republic, it said, presidents have generally understood that, in the words of George Washington, a president “must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.”

If the president deems a bill unconstitutional, he can veto it, the panel said, but “signing statements should not be a substitute for a presidential veto.”

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The issue has deep historical roots, the panel said, noting that Parliament had condemned King James II for nonenforcement of certain laws in the 17th century. The panel quoted the English Bill of Rights: “The pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal.”

I must say, I'm extremely surprised to see the kind of shrill language that I'd ordinarily use to describe this issue being employed by the ABA (especially since a number of the ABA panel members are conservative Republicans who can hardly be called liberal activists). Guess that's a good indication of the seriousness of the constitutional crisis.

See also, Unclaimed Territory by Glenn Greenwald, Defeating the Specter bill and Firedoglake, ABA Says: No King. For my earlier posts on this issue, see All Power to the President and Dictator-In-Chief.


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"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". (Shakespeare -- Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II).

Tags: News and Politics, Bush, Civil Liberties, Law, Executive Power, Signing Statements