An Abuse of Power

There is a concern on the part of some Americans that the executive branch is becoming too strong. One example of this would be President Bush's use of signing statements. In order to understand the issue you would first have to define what exactly is a signing statement?

If one were to look the term up using Wikipedia it would be defined as " a written proclamation issued by the goverment executive power that accompanies the signing of a law passed by the government's legislature". The real question to the definition is how can a president actually use this signing statement?

It is an important question because we live in a country based upon a government of checks and balances between the legislative, judicial, and executive branch. President Bush (along with other US Presidents) can write a Presdiential signing statement that directs how the law is going to be applied. In other words, President Bush can basically rewrite a law after it has been signed.

The American Bar Association this week stated Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed. In this bipartisan panel it stated President Bush has issued such"signing statements" far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the grounds that they infringed on his prerogatives. (NY Times July 24, 2006)

If you are keeping score than you would know that this is a President who stated that the purpose of selecting Supreme Court justices would be those who do not "legislate from the bench" and "strictly interpret the constitution". These are good sound bites coming from a President who stated that he was a "fiscal conservative" while exploding our federal debt to over 9 trillion dollars.

What happens when a President considers it O.K. to undermine the "rule of law" using a doctrine of "unitary executive"? It has the power to destroy the same US Constitution that this President asks of his Supreme Court nominees to decide. President Bush has only used a veto once during his Presidency. Do you wonder why??

Imagine you signed a contract with a business to repair your house. After the contract is signed that business could state that while he signed the document he had the power to change it at any time and no one could check his power. Would you want to do business with that person and more importantly what would you do if you knew nothing about it??

Winston Churchill once said "the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter". Thomas Jeffferson once said "democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty nine".

While those quotes from two people I admire greatly might state my anger with the state of democracy in America it does not make me lose faith in a process to which I beleive. I will leave you with this quote from Winston Churchill:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.