Signing Statements and Statutory Interpretation in the Bush Administration

Over twenty years ago, Attorney General Edwin Meese touched off a contentious debate by proposing that judges take presidential signing statements into account when interpreting statutes.To facilitate this proposal, the Attorney General persuaded West Publishing Company to include presidential signing statements in the legislative history it published in the U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News (U.S.C.C.A.N.).' Attorney General Meese's position was fairly straightforward: the President is a significant actor in the legislative process.The Constitution authorizes the President to recommend to Congress "such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.2 Moreover, a bill may not become a law unless it has been presented to the President and has been either approved by him or passed by Congress over the President's veto.3 Constitutional formalities aside, the President is a vitally important actor in the legislative process.The President exercises a great deal of agenda-setting power, especially when the President's party holds a majority in Congress.The President is in a position to offer incentives and disincentives to help persuade legislators to vote in favor of the President's legislative priorities.The President, as head of the executive branch, controls much of the information that forms the basis of legislative decisionmaking.In these and other ways, the President is extremely powerful in the legislative arena.Thus, if a court is attempting to determine the legislative intent behind a piece of legislation, the published views of the President would seem to be potentially probative.This innovation was largely developed by a young Justice Department attorney named Samuel Alito. 4 The controversy that the Meese and Alito proposal generated soon died down.More recently, the Bush administration has followed a practice that has brought signing statements back to broad public attention, but for different reasons.