There has been a great deal of coverage in the news lately regarding President Bush’s use of signing statements. For a couple of examples, check out this Boston Globe article on the signing statement that was added to the bill banning torture that he signed a couple of weeks ago or listen to this NPR story that provides some general information on his use of signing statements.
Don’t just take what the media has to say face value, though. All the signing statements that presidents issue end up in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. It is fairly easy to find signing statements issued by President Bush and by former President Clinton. The Government Printing Office has the Weekly compilation online back to 1993. From the main page you can search the Weekly Compilations that have been issued since the start of the year or you can click on the Search link to search any combination of years from 1993 to the present.
When you search you can just type in “statement on signing,” but that will return every statement on signing, which many times just includes a statement that says “I think this is a great law…” To find those statements that include interpretations of the law, try adding the term construe to your search string (so you search would be: “statement on signing” construe).
Now you can make your own decisions on the signing statements issued by Bush and you can compare them to those issued by Clinton. You can also look for signing statements issued by H.W. Bush, Reagan and other presidents, but to do that you will have to use the old fashion Weekly Compilation, which is located at the Steelcase Library, and look for the statements by hand.
