As I suspected, President Obama didn’t go through with issuing a so-called “constitutional signing statement” with respect to the recent legislation placing restrictions on the transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo, through which he would have noted his constitutional objections to the legislation and construed it not to affect his authority to transfer the detainees, […]
Archive | Presidential Signing Statements
The President’s Recent Signing Statements
I wasn’t planning on blogging the story in the print edition of today’s New York Times (p. A15), reporting that the President may issue a constitutional signing statement “asserting that [the President] has the constitutional power to disregard . . . restrictions” contained in recently enacted legislation that would restrict his ability to transfer detainees […]
President Obama Issues Another Signing Statement
In my efforts to bore readers into submission, I’ve blogged a fair amount here about presidential use of “constitutional signing statements.” As then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger explained early during the Clinton Administration, such signing statements are frequently used to “express[] the President’s intention to construe or administer a statute in a particular manner (often […]
The Supreme Court and Presidential Signing Statements: United States v. Stevens
One of the things that struck me during the kerfuffle about presidential signing statements during the Bush Administration was the widely held belief that presidential signing statements were immediately and consistently implemented throughout the Executive Branch. In my experience, signing statements are typically used simply to “lay down a marker” with Congress by saying where […]