We’ve known for a while that the president has a nasty habit of issuing “signing statements,” through which Bush tells Congress which parts of certain laws he’s decided to ignore. Senate Pro Tem Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) recently asked the non-partisan General Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, to look into how these signing statements affect administration policy.
The GAO issued its report today.
Today, the nonpartisan General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report which found that in a limited number of Presidential signing statements examined, the Bush Administration failed to execute the law as instructed in over 30 percent of the cases.
GAO researchers found signing statements in 11 of 12 appropriations acts in fiscal year
2006 and examined a sample of 19 provisions with which the President expressed concern in his signing statements. The President objected to, and federal agencies failed to execute, public law in six of those cases – 30 percent of the total sample.“The Administration is thumbing its nose at the law,” Conyers said. “This study calls for an extensive review of these practices, something the Administration has so far refused to do.”
Added Byrd, “The White House cannot pick and choose which laws it follows and which it ignores. When a president signs a bill into law, the president signs the entire bill. The Administration cannot be in the business of cherry picking the laws it likes and the laws it doesn’t.”
It’s worth noting, as Paul Kiel emphasizes, that the GAO’s report said, “Although we found the agencies did not execute the provisions as enacted, we cannot conclude that agency noncompliance was the result of the President’s signing statements.”
On this, the GAO is agnostic. In other words, we don’t know that the executive branch failed to follow the law because of the signing statements; we only know that the president issued a signing statement questioning certain provisions of the law and then, lo and behold, the administration ignored those provisions.
And what kind of measures are we talking about?
Some of the most troubling instances that the GAO examined include:
– The Defense Department did not include separate budget justification documents explaining how Iraq war funding was to be spent in its 2007 budget request, as required by public law;
– The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not submit a proposal and expenditure plan for housing, as directed by Congress;
– Customs and Border patrol did not relocate its checkpoints in the Tucson area every seven days, as directed by Congress.
The full report is online (.pdf).
Byrd concluded, “This GAO opinion underscores the fact that the Bush White House is constantly grabbing for more power, seeking to drive the people’s branch of government to the sidelines. Too often, the Bush Administration does what it wants, no matter the law. It says what it wants, no matter the facts. We must continue to demand accountability and openness from this White House to counter this power grab.”
Sounds right to me.