Executive Power Outrage

"William Sessions , a retired federal judge who was the director of the FBI under both Reagan and President George H.W. Bush, said he agreed to participate because he believed that the signing statements raise a 'serious problem' for the American constitutional system.

" 'I think it's very important for the people of the United States to have trust and reliance that the president is not going around the law,' Sessions said. 'The importance of it speaks for itself.' "

Another member, retired appeals court judge Patricia Wald, tells Savage that she is especially interested in studying how signing statements affect the federal bureaucracy.

Here, from the ABA, is the list of task force members .

The weekend before, Savage explained where all these signing statements are coming from: "The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power, according to former White House and Justice Department officials.

"The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington, is the Bush administration's leading architect of the 'signing statements' the president has appended to more than 750 laws. . . .

"Cheney's office has taken the lead in challenging many of these laws, officials said, because they run counter to an expansive view of executive power that Cheney has cultivated for the past 30 years. Under the theory, Congress cannot pass laws that place restrictions or requirements on how the president runs the military and spy agencies. Nor can it pass laws giving government officials the power or responsibility to act independently of the president.

"Mainstream legal scholars across the political spectrum reject Cheney's expansive view of presidential authority, saying the Constitution gives Congress the power to make all rules and regulations for the military and the executive branch and the Supreme Court has consistently upheld laws giving bureaucrats and certain prosecutors the power to act independently of the president."

After an unprecedented number of signing statements, the White House laid low for a while.

But Cheney finally couldn't contain himself any longer, apparently. And here's the first Bush signing statement in three months , quietly filed away two weeks ago in response to the deeply threatening Coastal Barrier Resources Reauthorization Act of 2005 .

The law, sponsored by five Republicans from both houses, and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by voice vote in the House, directs the Secretary of the Interior to report to Congress on the creation of digital maps of the John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System units and other protected areas under a digital mapping pilot project.

But here's what Bush's signing statement says: "Section 3(c)(2) and section 4(c)(3)(C) and (D) purport to require executive branch officials to submit legislative recommendations to the Congress. The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the Constitution's commitment to the President of the authority to submit for the consideration of the Congress such measures as the President judges necessary and expedient and to supervise the unitary executive branch."