When President Bush recently signed a bill outlawing torture, it could have been seen as a strong message against the cruelty of prisoners and detainees. However, when signing the bill, the president also appended a signing statement to the document which effectively bypassed the ban by saying that the president could waive the terms if necessary in the fight against terrorism. This is just the latest action in a troubling series of policy decisions made by the Bush administration which threaten to concentrate power into the executive branch, weakening the system of checks and balances.
The typical response by defenders of these signing statements is that they have been used by previous presidents. This defense is at best extremely misleading. At the end of 2004, Bush had issued 108 signing statements. In contrast, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan only issued 247 signing statements combined, and all the presidents before Reagan issued a mere 75 statements. Additionally, the manner in which President Bush uses signing statements is extremely different than that of his predecessors; the statements were typically used by presidents to make a commentary on bills which they were exceptionally supportive of or were signing with extreme reservations. Bush, on the other hand, uses the statements to dispute the constitutionality of the bills in question. The text of the statements typically argues in favor of a more powerful executive branch, saying for example, that the president has exclusive power over foreign affairs.
Although these signing statements have yet to be tested in court, their very presence should be a cause for concern. The Bush administration has always been interested in consolidating the power of the executive branch, and signing statements are only a part of this interest. President Bush follows what is known as “the doctrine of unitary executive.” Essentially, this doctrine states that the president has total control over the executive branch. This view is shared by many in the administration, as well as some in the judiciary branch, including Justice Samuel Alito. Consolidating a branch of government into a single man contradicts how our system of government should work. Furthermore, by consolidating power with the executive, this doctrine weakens the other branches of government, damaging the democratic safeguards imposed by our founding fathers. The “doctrine of unitary executive” results in an executive branch with unchecked power and minimal accountability, and as citizens of the United States, we cannot accept this damage to our system of government.
