On Wednesday, at a brief signing ceremony, the president put his signature on a homeland security bill that included an overhaul of FEMA and added $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. At the event, Bush said, “This is a good bill.”
It was not, apparently, good enough for him to agree to the follow the bill’s provisions.
President Bush, again defying Congress, insisted he has the power to alter the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watch lists.
In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on agency activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency’s 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section “in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority.”
Which is to say, the president will approach this new law the same way he’s approached the 800 other laws which have spurred White House “signing statements” — by ignoring the parts he doesn’t like.
I don’t mean to belabor the point, but this really is breathtaking. The bill mandates a certain procedure, Bush signs the bill into law, and then says he’ll ignore the procedure. There are a few phrases that come to mind to describe this scenario, but “American system of government” isn’t one of them.
Indeed, it wasn’t the only problem with this legislation. Bush’s signing statement challenged at least three-dozen laws specified in this homeland security bill.
President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Congress passed the law last week as a response to FEMA’s poor handling of Hurricane Katrina. The agency’s slow response to flood victims exposed the fact that Michael Brown, Bush’s choice to lead the agency, had been a politically connected hire with no prior experience in emergency management.
To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency’s director in last week’s homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has “a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management” and “not less than five years of executive leadership.”
Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new restrictions.
As Josh Marshall put it, “Let’s not mince words: President Bush is a profound threat to the US constitution…. His contempt for the rule of law needs to be ended.”
For what it’s worth, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service released a report this week saying that these signing statements are “an integral part” of the president’s “comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power” at the expense of the legislative branch.
The CRS added that “a robust oversight regime focusing on substantive executive action, as opposed to the vague and generalized assertions of authority typical of signing statements, might allow Congress in turn to more effectively assert its constitutional prerogatives and ensure compliance with its enactments.”
In other words, if Congress would bother to do its job, these signing statements wouldn’t be such a problem. Maybe in January….