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41–178F 2008

NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THE

PRESIDENT’S SIGNING STATEMENT

ON THE SUDAN ACCOUNTABILITY

AND DIVESTMENT ACT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 8, 2008

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 110–87

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

TIM MAHONEY, Florida 

CHARLES WILSON, Ohio 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RON PAUL, Texas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

TOM PRICE, Georgia 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JOHN CAMPBELL, California 

ADAM PUTNAM, Florida 

MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota 

PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois 

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas 

THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan 

KEVIN McCARTHY, California 

DEAN HELLER, Nevada

JEANNE M. ROSLANOWICK, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

February 8, 2008 .............................................................................................. 1

Appendix: 

February 8, 2008 .............................................................................................. 35

WITNESSES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008

Caprio, Hon. Frank T., General Treasurer, Office of the Rhode Island General 

Treasurer .............................................................................................................. 23

Fowler, Jerry, Executive Director, Save Darfur Coalition ................................... 13

Schwartz, Paul H., Esq., Partner, Cooley Godward Kronish, LLP ...................... 21

Wald, Hon. Patricia M., former Judge and Chief Judge, United States Court 

of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ................................................. 15

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Caprio, Hon. Frank T. ...................................................................................... 36

Fowler, Jerry ..................................................................................................... 39

Schwartz, Paul H., Esq. ................................................................................... 43

Wald, Hon. Patricia M. .................................................................................... 53

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Frank, Hon. Barney: 

Press release on the President’s Signing of the Sudan Divestment Legislation, dated January 7, 2008 ...................................................................... 59

Letter from the U.S. Department of State to Senator Mitch McConnell, 

dated October 22, 2007 ................................................................................. 60

Letter from the U.S. Department of State to Senator Harry Reid, dated 

October 22, 2007 ........................................................................................... 63

Letter from The White House to Chairman Barney Frank, dated February 4, 2008 ................................................................................................. 66

Letter from the U.S. Department of Justice to Vice President Richard 

B. Cheney, dated October 26, 2007 ............................................................. 67

Letter from the Department of the Treasury to Senator Harry Reid, 

dated July 30, 2007 ....................................................................................... 73

Bachus, Hon. Spencer: 

Ward Brehm’s National Prayer Breakfast Remarks, dated February 8, 

2008 ................................................................................................................ 75

(1)

NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THE 

PRESIDENT’S SIGNING STATEMENT 

ON THE SUDAN ACCOUNTABILITY 

AND DIVESTMENT ACT 

Friday, February 8, 2008

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barney Frank [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Frank, Watt, Capuano, Green, 

Cleaver; and Bachus. 

Also present: Representative Lee. 

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing of the Committee on Financial 

Services will come to order. 

This is a hearing on the implementation of legislation passed, I 

believe unanimously, by both the House and the Senate. It was 

passed unanimously over the objections of the Bush Administration. And there are, of course, in the Constitution, ways for the 

President to fight legislation to which he is opposed. He is free, obviously, to have members of his Administration argue against it, 

and he in fact ultimately has a veto, which could require a twothirds vote of both Houses. 

The legislation, of course, is legislation intended to enhance the 

ability of people in the United States to take action expressing 

their horror at the genocide that is taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan. We think it is important for the American government to oppose that in various ways. 

We believe it is also important to remove any obstacles from others in this country—States, economic entities, and individuals—

from joining in. And indeed, there is an argument in favor of that, 

which I believe is very powerful. 

It is often the case that governments who have engaged in atrocious behavior, when the United States government opposes 

them—we don’t do that as consistently as I would like, but in those 

cases where we do, there is a tendency for those governments to 

say, oh, well, that is just the Administration. It is particularly the 

case now, and it has become easy to argue in some places to people 

who aren’t terribly sophisticated about America’s internal politics, 

that this Administration does not speak for the majority of the 

country in a number of areas. 

2

In the case of Sudan, it is clear that the Administration’s expressed opposition to the genocide represents an overwhelming intense feeling from the American people. And what we do in this 

legislation, which was originally conceived by our colleague, the 

gentlewoman from California who sits with us today, we are giving 

people a chance to repudiate that argument. 

Now, one of the things the Administration doesn’t like is the notion that State legislatures might take positions, elected State officials might take positions expressing their abhorrence of genocide 

and not just expressing their abhorrence but putting their money 

where their mouths are. I do not understand why the Administration is opposed to that. 

Let’s be clear: This is not a bill that generally allows that to happen, although I would be in favor of such legislation. It is a very 

narrowly crafted one that deals only with the issues of Darfur in 

the Sudan. And why this Administration would oppose our efforts 

to allow a broad range of Americans to join the Administration in 

its stated policy of opposing this is puzzling to me. 

Apparently we have an Administration so wedded to the notion 

of ever-increasing executive power that it is willing to put its interest in enhanced executive power and diminished ability for others 

in this country to speak out ahead of its commitment to ending the 

genocide in Darfur because what they tell us is that they would 

rather not have that help; they don’t want States interfering in foreign policy. 

I would ask unanimous consent to put into the record now a letter dated October 22, 2007, from Jeffrey Bergner, the Assistant 

Secretary of Legislative Affairs for the Department of State. And 

it says here in part—it is a letter to Senator McConnell, and there 

is also one to Senator Reid opposing the bill. 

I want to make this point: the President tried to stop this bill 

from passing. He lobbied against it. He lost. Indeed, there were no 

votes on it because he did not have a lot of support among members of the House or the Senate. So it went through. 

The President was entitled to oppose the bill. The President was 

entitled to have the State Department lobby against it. He was 

even entitled to veto it. What he is not entitled to do is, having 

failed in those efforts and having declined to veto it, to then unilaterally undermine it by a signing statement which will vitiate its intended effect. 

And what they say is, ‘‘First and foremost, we oppose the bill’s 

affirmative authorization for State and local governments to divest 

from foreign companies doing business in named sectors in Sudan, 

Darfur. These provisions could be seen (however incorrectly), they 

say parenthetically, ‘‘as effectively converting State actions which 

States are already taking into federally protected privileges, thereby undercutting the supremacy clause and the President’s powers 

thereunder. We do not believe that either the interests of either the 

Article I or Article II branches of government are served by such 

legislation, especially in this situation where divestment actions 

are currently proceeding without Federal intervention. Such authorizations would set a dangerous precedent.’’ 

Well, first of all, the silliness of the constitutional argument is 

important. I am going to give myself extra time. I will give it to 

3

others as well. How does it violate the supremacy clause for the 

Congress of the United States to pass a law, signed by the President, albeit reluctantly, authorizing something? 

The supremacy clause says that if there is a conflict between the 

Federal Government and the States, the Federal Government wins. 

It is a position I will ask Judge Wald to correct me on if I have 

stated it incorrectly. The supremacy clause is fairly clear-cut. It 

says if the Federal Government makes a decision, it countermands 

a contrary State decision. 

How could anyone argue rationally that the Federal Government 

undermines the supremacy clause by a decision it takes authorizing actions? What is the undercutting of the supremacy clause? 

But again, understand, the right of the executive to do this preempts the interest in enhancing the effectiveness of action to express our distaste for what happens in Sudan. 

They also come to the defense of the fund managers. Now, what 

we had is State pension funds that are afraid of being sued. And 

the Administration says, well, they are proceeding anyway. Yes, 

but they are proceeding under the threat of a lawsuit. 

The purpose of this bill—you know, we thought we had people 

here who said, there is too much litigation in this society. Well, we 

took an action to try and prevent litigation, to allow these things 

to go forward. And the Administration objects to our doing that, 

and they say, well, some people are doing it anyway. Yes, but we 

believe more would if they weren’t threatened with litigation. And 

certainly no harm is done, certainly not to the supremacy clause 

by the Congress passing a law. 

We then have the argument also on behalf of the fund managers. 

Now, we have had situations where people have wanted to have 

their mutual funds or the money that they have owned or invested—they want divestiture. And they have been told by some of 

the third party fund managers, oh, we can’t do that. We owe you 

the duty of maximizing the income. 

Now, I must say that some of the fund managers who have 

claimed to be restrained here welcome the restraints. There is a device that we in Congress, in politics, sometimes use which I think 

is in play here. It is what I call the ‘‘reverse Houdini.’’ 

Harry Houdini had an act in which he would have other people 

tie him up in very firm knots and then he would get out of the 

knots. That was his act. It is common in politics, and apparently 

in the fund management area, to do the reverse. You tie yourself 

up in knots. You impose restraints on yourself. And then, when you 

are asked to do something, you say, ‘‘Oh, I can’t do that. I am all 

tied up in knots.’’ 

Because we are here untying them, and the Administration objects to that. Here is what the Administration said: ‘‘By affirming 

that fund managers may avoid their fiduciary responsibility in stated cases, these provisions weaken essential legal protections for investors, including workers, retirees, and their families, and set a 

dangerous precedent for extending such immunity.’’ 

I wish that this zeal on behalf of the right of people to bring lawsuits in defense of investors had been present when the Administration refused to allow the Securities and Exchange Commission 

to file a lawsuit in the Stoneridge case vindicating the rights of inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
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vestors who wanted to bring a lawsuit. It is a rare example of this 

Administration worrying about the right of investors to sue not 

being infringed. 

Those are the merits. So here is where we are. I got a letter. We 

then, by the way, asked the Justice and State Departments to come 

and testify. The State Department wrote a letter expressing its opposition to the bill, so it seemed natural then to say, ‘‘Well, will you 

come and talk about this signing statement?’’ They refused to do 

it. The State Department and the Justice Department refused to do 

it. And essentially they said, frankly, ‘‘Hey, go talk to the White 

House because this is their signing statement.’’ 

So then we have the letter that I received earlier this week from 

the counsel to the President: ‘‘While we appreciate the interest the 

committee may have in the signing statement, there are constitutionally based concerns about providing direct testimony that will 

touch on communications to or with the President, and particularly 

those in the nature of legal advice.’’ 

We asked the White House to come and explain the public policy 

and the legal arguments here. They refused to do it. The White 

House counsel is not some private attorney. In fact, I think it was 

established during the disputes during the Clinton Administration 

that the relationship between the President and official counsel 

was not the same as a purely private attorney. 

We are not talking about somebody up on a misdemeanor or felony rap, and we are not trying to interfere with the attorney-client 

privilege. We are asking the President’s lawyers to justify the constitutionality of an argument that, having failed to defeat a bill 

through the normal legislative process and having not had the 

courage to veto the bill, although they wished obviously that they 

could have because they didn’t want to put their members, I guess, 

through the choice of having to vote to override them, to come and 

tell us by what right they now announce that they, having signed 

the bill, will tell people when it is okay and when it isn’t okay. Because that is what the signing statement does. 

And that is particularly relevant here because we are talking 

about encouraging people to not be deterred by a lawsuit. And now 

we have people saying, okay, Congress says I won’t be sued, but 

the President says I can be sued. I mean, it is a clear blow at the 

core of this bill because what it says is, hey, the White House says 

that if I am sued and I plead this congressional act, the President 

who signed it may intervene and say, no, no. The act was unconstitutional in that regard. I signed it because why not sign an act that 

is unconstitutional if I have reserved to myself the right unilaterally to get rid of it or to tell people when they can enforce it and 

when not? 

So they refused to testify. And here is the next paragraph: ‘‘It is 

the policy of the Administration to cooperate with the legitimate inquiries of Congress to the fullest extent possible. In that spirit and 

toward that goal, we are prepared to provide an informal briefing 

to your committee presented by subject matter experts within the 

Executive Branch if that is desired by you.’’ 

No, it is not. We will not accept some back door, informal chat 

on a matter of overwhelming constitutional importance as opposed 

to testimony by them openly. Also, by the way, they say ‘‘subject 

5

matter experts.’’ They mean that they will tell us again why they 

didn’t like the bill, why they tried to kill it, and why he wished he 

could have vetoed it, but he knew it wouldn’t be sustained. They 

apparently don’t plan to discuss why they have the right to sign 

a bill and then tell people to ignore it. And they then called my attention to these letters which I just read. 

We have a situation in which, expressing the deep outrage of the 

American people at genocide, frustrated by our inability to do more, 

we passed a bill that my colleague from California initiated which 

said that those Americans whose sense of decency drives them to 

say that they do not wish to be financially complicit in one of the 

greatest crimes now going on in the world, that the people to whom 

I have entrusted my money can honor my outrage and not face a 

lawsuit, and allow States and cities and others to join in expressing 

to the government of the Sudan how outraged we are. 

And this Administration said, ‘‘No, that might set a bad precedent for our powers.’’ No, the American people have no role in this 

other than having voted every 4 years for us. And we will unilaterally, not having been able to kill the bill, tell people, feel free to 

ignore it. 

And as I said, in the nature of this case, since it is meant to encourage people not to be deterred by the threat of lawsuit, vitiating 

that really affects the law. So it is a signing statement that is intended to give, through that unilateral assertion of executive 

power, the right to undercut a bill that they could not defeat. 

It is bad for the efforts against the Sudan, and it is wrong as a 

matter of constitutional principle. And it is compounded by the arrogant refusal to discuss this in public. So I hope that this hearing 

proceeding, and I must say it is my intention at some point we will 

be thinking about whether the House ought to pass a resolution repudiating this effort by the President to take back, in this unilateral fashion, what he could not do through constitutional processes. 

Before I recognize the ranking member, I would ask unanimous 

consent that our colleague from California, an alumna of this committee, be allowed to participate in the hearing, showing the great 

spirit of charity on the part of this committee and overlooking the 

fact that she left us. Is there any objection? 

[No response] 

The CHAIRMAN. Hearing none, the gentlewoman will be allowed 

to participate. Under the rules, the full members of the committee 

will come first, and she will come at the end. 

The gentleman from Alabama. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for continuing to hold these hearings 

focusing on Sudan and the genocide and Darfur. It is a cause I believe in strongly, and you and I and Ms. Lee and others have 

worked for years to try to have some positive influence on the 

slaughter there. I welcome the Congresswoman from California to 

the hearing, and I welcome her work in this regard. 

The Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act that we passed in 

this Congress had overwhelming bipartisan support. As you know, 

it became law on the last day of last year. We cannot rewrite history or save lives that are already lost in Darfur. However, we can 

and must resolve to do things better going forward. 

6

This law has the potential to give hundreds of thousands of 

peaceful men, women, and children in Darfur an increased chance 

of surviving the genocide. Economic and financial considerations 

have been used to both block and water down our Sudan capital 

markets legislation in the past. Economic and financial considerations are important. But in a loving nation, such considerations 

can never be used as a justification for turning a blind eye to genocide. 

Closing our financial markets to those who participate directly or 

indirectly in the slaughter of innocent human beings is well within 

our ability, and ought to be our bedrock principle. America is a loving nation, and allowing our financial markets to be utilized by an 

evil regime that conducts religious and racial genocide is inconsistent with our values and principles. 

This new law puts strong pressure on a government that has 

consistently engaged in genocidal actions, both directly and as an 

enabler of paramilitary factions that are harassing and killing people in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan. It is vital to keep pressure 

on the Khartoum government because of the bait-and-switch game 

it has played with the rest of the world for years, pretending to 

make strides to end the genocide and then going back on its word 

when the world’s outrage is temporarily spent or focused elsewhere. 

Even now, in neighboring Chad, efforts to overthrow the current 

government are believed to be an attempt to frustrate international 

efforts to intervene in Sudan. The upheaval in Chad is widely believed to be supported by the Khartoum government. The rebels 

have even entered Chad from Sudan. 

President Deby’s cooperation is essential for the deployment of 

peacekeepers in Darfur, and efforts to overthrow him starkly illuminate the intentions of the Khartoum government. Such destabilizing actions and violent forays make it clear that pressure on 

the Khartoum government must be unrelenting. 

The objectives of this law are ones I wholly embrace. Shutting off 

Khartoum’s financial pipeline will bring us closer to the goal of 

halting the atrocities. It is a goal that I do believe is shared by the 

Administration. 

In regard to the signing statement, let me first say that communications between this White House and the Congress have been 

problematic on many issues. Obviously, this is an additional one. 

I am disappointed by the State Department and what appears on 

its face to be arrogance and also an ignorance of the duties and obligations, as well as the powers vested in the Legislative Branch by 

the Constitution. 

Mr. Chairman, once again let me thank you for this important 

hearing. As I conclude, I would like to read a few passages from 

the prayer breakfast message yesterday. It is the President’s prayer breakfast. The President was there, and Members of Congress 

were there, from both the Senate and the House. Over 4,000 people 

attended throughout the world. Members of the cabinet were also 

present. 

The message was from Ward Breen, who heads up the African 

Development Fund. Here is something that I think applies very diVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
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rectly to the efforts that Ms. Lee and others in this Congress have 

made to address the genocide in Africa. 

He says, and I quote, ‘‘The question I have been asked by most 

of my American friends’’—this is also a question I have been 

asked—‘‘is why cross an ocean to help people when you need only 

cross the street to help your own?’’ It is a great question, and the 

answer, of course, is that we need to do both. Solzhenitsyn said 

that disaster is defined by two things, magnitude and distance. So 

a small disaster close to home or a huge disaster far away results 

in what he describes as bearable disasters of bearable proportions. 

‘‘We have become too good at bearing. Our hearts should be broken by the things that break the heart of God. Specifically in Africa, there are many far-away disasters of epic proportions.’’ He lists 

Rwanda as one. He goes on to say, ‘‘Today in Darfur, Sudan, 1.5 

million homeless and thousands terrorized by raping and killing.’’ 

He concludes by talking about AIDS. Epic disasters of epic proportions, far from home for most of us. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your hearing, and I only hope 

that the Administration will take a more helpful, more cooperative 

role in this process. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. Before turning to the 

gentleman from North Carolina, I just want to express my appreciation. And people should know that the gentleman from Alabama 

now, and previously when he was chairman of the Subcommittee 

on Financial Institutions, has been one of the leading members of 

this Congress in trying to deal with the terrible problems that have 

afflicted people in Africa, from debt relief to now. 

This was a sign of a genuine passion that he has honestly and 

courageously articulated, and we will continue to work together on 

a number of these issues. 

Mr. BACHUS. Could I introduce into the record the entire speech? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. BACHUS. I would also like to add another thing he said that 

I had underlined: ‘‘Proverbs, the Book of Wisdom, says, ‘Speak up 

for those who can’t speak for themselves, and defend the rights of 

the poor and destitute.’ If there are any people that can’t defend 

themselves, it is the people of Darfur.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman, and that will be made 

part of the record without objection. 

The gentleman from North Carolina is now recognized. I should 

note that he is also a member of the Judiciary Committee, and one 

of the leading legal scholars of this Congress. 

Mr. WATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t take 4 or 5 minutes, but I do think it is important to make two points. 

The first point is that I was not here in Congress during the 

lead-up to the actions that were taken with respect to South Africa. 

But in many respects, from what I have read about those steps 

leading to it, the White House and Presidents of the United States 

were just as reluctant to take any kind of affirmative, positive step 

until they were basically forced to do so. 

And this strikes me as yet another example of that, in which if 

this works out well, which really there is no good method to make 

it work out well retrospectively but it might work out well prospectively, I suspect this President will be bragging about all of the 

8

good things that he did to end the genocide in Darfur, including 

this legislation that we passed. 

The difference there, I think, was that signing statements were 

not the order of the day. And as the chairman has noted, we have 

found in the Judiciary Committee that this President has just, in 

a virtual dictatorial fashion, decided that he can ignore the laws 

that Congress passes, even those that he signs into law, by writing 

these signing statements that have the effect of watering them 

down or minimizing the impact of them. 

So this is not new, but it is new in the sense that signing statements have become such a precedent for this Administration, being 

used in so many different areas that it is unbelievable. 

The second point is, this is a particular disappointment because 

a number of us work with our local States to try to get them to 

pass divestment legislation. Many of them had reluctances, based 

on the uncertainty of the law and various and sundry other concerns that they were expressing, but they passed those laws anyway. 

To the extent that the signing statement that the President has 

attached to this bill muddies the water about whether States have 

the authority and what authority they have, it basically sets us 

back substantially, I think, in some of those States that were kind 

of concerned about what the standards were and concerned about 

what they could do at the State level not only with their government funds but with pension plans and other funds that were potentially being divested or were being invested in Darfur and 

Sudan. 

So this is a real concern, and I join the chairman in expressing 

that concern. And I am glad that we are having the hearing about 

it to try to minimize it as much as we can. 

I will yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. And I do want to note 

that we did get a letter from the Department of Justice as well 

which made similar arguments, which we will put in the record. 

And again, they declined to come and discuss it. 

But we did get a letter from the Department of the Treasury. 

They had one objection about their role in providing the specifics 

of the list, and we acceded to that. So on the procedural question, 

an important question but a question about how you did this, when 

Treasury raised an objection about how do to this better, we acceded to that. So it is not as if they were totally stonewalling. 

Now I am going to call on my colleague and neighbor from Massachusetts, who has been one of the leaders in the Congress in the 

effort to mobilize against the Darfur genocide. My colleague, Mr. 

Capuano. 

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I really 

just came to kind of express my outrage at what is going on here, 

and to thank people at this panel for standing up. 

The easiest thing that I have seen anybody do is not—nobody is 

for genocide, but to just remain silent, to just let things slide, to 

worry about other issues. And the truth is, let’s be serious. I mean, 

if there is a complete and utter genocide and everybody in Darfur 

were killed, most of our lives will not be personally individually 

changed. 

9

Yet that is not why any of us ever ran for public office. That is 

not why you are here. And I would argue that anybody who feels 

that way or allows those feelings to consume them are less human 

than they should be. And I just want to thank the chairman and 

the ranking member for keeping this issue alive and moving it forward. 

And there are days that—I have been involved with this now for 

several years, and there are days that I, and I am sure that any 

of us who watch this, feel powerless, helpless, and that maybe nobody cares except a handful of us. I don’t know. 

But I will tell you that those are the days that get me angry. I 

feel things that I don’t generally feel when I am in public office. 

And those are days that make me remember that there have been 

people before us that have had better things to say than I will ever 

say. 

And there is one quote that I actually keep on my wall in the 

office from Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel that says, ‘‘There may 

be times we are powerless to prevent injustice. But there must 

never be times that we fail to protest.’’ And if nothing else, I am 

here today to protest. 

I don’t know that this will change anything. I don’t know that 

we can get the President to actually do the things he should be 

doing. I don’t know that we can get the world to do what they 

should be doing. But I do know one thing, that I am not going to 

stop. And I know that the people at this table and the people on 

this committee won’t stop. If it doesn’t save one life, do what we 

can do. 

And I will tell you that I don’t know what we are going to do 

next. I don’t know if this government will do anything next. But 

every day that goes by, I am looking for things that we can do, that 

we can take action on, little as they might be, hoping that someone 

will come up with a better idea than me. 

I mean, right now I am reduced to the fact that right now I have 

no intention of watching one minute of the Olympics. Not one 

minute will I turn that TV on. Now, I hope that changes. I want 

to watch the Olympics. I want to root for American athletes. But 

I won’t. 

And I won’t because we can’t get China, the leading protector of 

the Sudanese government, to do anything. To do anything. To put 

their arms around their friends and say, guys, stop. Not only are 

they not doing that—and the world isn’t, either. But the rest of the 

world is probably powerless to do it. 

The United States Government seems powerless to do it. All we 

have to offer here is military might and economic might. We seem 

at the moment to be unwilling to use our economic might, and certainly unwilling to use our military might. There are others who 

can, yet they refuse to do it. They talk a good game. The U.N. has 

talked a good game. But in the final analysis, people are still dying. 

The horrors are expanding, and they may well consume the entire 

region. 

You all know this. I am telling you things you already know. I 

am kind of doing this for the three people who might be watching 

this. At the same time, we do what we can do. I know that you are 

each doing what you can do. 

10

And I just want to say thank you for your leadership, for your 

courage, and more importantly, your commitment, your stick-to-itiveness on an issue that again, for all of us, each and every one 

of us, it would be just easier to focus on other things and to worry 

about other things and to spend our time doing other things that 

maybe we could change a little more easily. 

But there is nothing more important, in my opinion, than as a 

human being standing up for the lives and wellbeing of other 

human beings that are being so oppressed and so unnecessarily victimized. So I just want to say thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Next we will hear from another one of the legal 

experts on this committee, a former judge who brought his legal 

learning and his passion to our deliberations. The gentleman from 

Texas, Mr. Green. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank my colleague, Ms. Lee, for returning to the committee and continuing to 

stay the course. She has been a stellar, supreme example, if you 

will, for many of us. When we were neophytes, she was there to 

lead the way and to in fact show us the way over to the jailhouse. 

Some of us were involved in protest with her, and we were quite 

pleased to make a sacrifice for this cause. 

I am as disturbed as anyone with the behavior of the President. 

I think the comments of the chairman are most appropriate with 

reference to a resolution. I will gladly join the chairman in presenting a resolution such that we can at least express our deep desire to have the President understand the import of his actions. 

This President has put us in a position now where we have announced to the world, the United States of America has announced 

to the world, that genocide is taking place. But we are also saying 

to the world that we will watch the very thing that we have denounced continue when we had the power to make a difference. 

It is one thing to witness something when you are powerless, but 

an entirely different thing to sit silently by when you have the 

power to make a difference. History will not be kind to those who 

had the power and who refused to use it. History will not be kind 

to this President. 

We should not be kind. We should impose a resolution, the 

strongest possible resolution, denouncing his actions. I thank you, 

Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. And next another member of the committee— 

Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. I will yield to the gentleman. 

Mr. BACHUS. If I could, I would like to respond. I would like to 

think—I know the President has a dedication to Africa. He has 

quadrupled the funding for AIDS. I have to believe that this is a 

disconnect between the President and the State Department or 

some of his advisors. So I would hope that at least some opportunity is afforded— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, the gentleman has certainly earned the 

right—I mean, in general that would be a courtesy we would give 

the President. But the gentleman from Alabama is certainly in the 

right. We won’t take any action pending whatever conversation 

would happen. 

11

Mr. BACHUS. But I do—Mr. Green, I do understand your passion 

for Africa that I share, the genocide. Let me just emphasize, I know 

the President is concerned about the genocide, so that I am puzzled 

why the State Department— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say to the gentleman, look. We are not— 

Mr. BACHUS. —is not any more responsive. 

The CHAIRMAN. This is much too important an issue for pointscoring. I don’t denigrate point-scoring, but we can do that in another context. What I am concerned about is the extent to which 

this may undercut. And if there could be some conversations that 

could diminish that effect, then there wouldn’t be a need for further action. So we will work with the gentleman and be glad to do 

that. 

Mr. BACHUS. You know, as has been said here, the President did 

sign the legislation. He did attach a signing statement. And there 

needs to be open discussion of this. 

The CHAIRMAN. We will look forward to that. 

Mr. BACHUS. And as you read the letters, I think maybe the—

I am sorry that they didn’t see fit to be here. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate it. 

Let me—finally, another perspective. Our colleague from Missouri who is also, of course, a minister, and I am a great believer 

in the separation of church and state, but when we talk about a 

great moral evil such as this genocide, there is a perspective that 

the gentleman from Missouri brings that we have frequently found 

useful. 

And so I am glad to recognize Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rarely ever miss our 

committee hearings, and I don’t like to be late when I am here. I 

changed my flight schedule today because I needed for my own psychological wellbeing to at least come to express my concern. 

In my real life, as the chairman mentioned, I am a United Methodist pastor, and 5 years ago, we adopted 20 young men referred 

to by the media as the ‘‘Lost Boys.’’ These are young men who were 

able to get out of the Sudan. They left during their early teen 

years, and we provided housing for them, and now most of them 

are in the University of Missouri. 

They have no connection with their families at all. They don’t 

know where their mothers, their fathers, their sisters, and their 

brothers are, and thus the name the Lost Boys. And they immigrated here in this country, and I wish the people of the Congress 

and the State Department and the White House could spend one 

hour listening to these young men tell of what they saw. 

It is a tragedy that a 12-year-old could stand behind a tree and 

watch people he has known all of his life be machete’d to death. 

I tremble. I tremble at the thought that our country could act and 

fails to do so. 

My hope is that some kind of transformation will occur, whether 

it is in the State Department or in the White House, that would 

allow this country to do what it ought to do in the face of almost 

unparalleled agonies experienced by people. 

It seems to me that the signing statement that trumps all signing statements is the United States Constitution. It has already 

been signed. And that cancels out anybody signing anything that 

12

cancels it out. I am concerned that when we have these signing 

statements, it undermines the moral integrity of our Nation and it 

tarnishes our image as we stand on the world stage. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Finally, joining us today is our colleague who was the author and 

guiding spirit of this legislation. She combined a passion with an 

understanding of the process. I worked patiently with her, and very 

well staffed as she was so that we were able to deal with legitimate 

concerns that the Administration raised, as I said, when the Treasury had some arguments about how best to do it. 

But her combination of discipline and passion is the reason that 

this bill became law. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And first, let me 

just say to you this never could have happened without your leadership, your intellect, and your understanding of what we had to 

do in terms of making sure that the legislative processes worked 

in this body. 

But also I want to thank you for your moral and ethical commitment, and your understanding of really America’s role in the world 

and how this committee, under your leadership as chairman, can 

really address and become once again a leader in setting a new 

moral standard. So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership. 

I also thank Mr. Bachus for his commitment and his willingness 

and understanding to work in a bipartisan fashion. And I know 

that this stems not for political reasons, but for moral reasons. It 

comes from his heart. He understands that this is necessary in 

terms of how we address many of these moral crises. And yes, 

genocide is a great moral and humanitarian crisis. 

I have to thank him and this entire committee for stepping up 

to the plate and for taking this on head-on. And I think Mr. Watt 

mentioned the South Africa model. Well, my predecessor, now 

Mayor Ron Dellums, carried the divestment legislation. And as I 

remember it, President Reagan vetoed that legislation. But you 

know what? The Congress overrode that veto and finally put the 

United States on the right side of history as it related to the brutal, oppressive regime of apartheid in South Africa. And the rest 

is history. 

And so now we are at another moment when we have another 

great crisis, and that is the genocide that is occurring in Darfur. 

This Congress, in a bipartisan way, passed the toughest, most reasonable divestment legislation which we are talking about today. 

And the President, I guess, knew that he could not override—that 

he could not veto this bill because, once again, we would have overridden the veto. 

And so I think this is very cynical what took place, Mr. Chairman, because this is really where the rubber meets the road. The 

President declared genocide as taking place in Darfur, and indicated several years ago that he would take all measures to address 

this genocide. 

And so here now we have a bill that would begin to put the 

squeeze on Khartoum, would allow our people in this country, our 

universities, pension funds, States, to begin to do what they needed 

to do to address this genocide, and he issues a signing statement 

13

that in essence would try to send a signal that this is not something that he would approve. And so I think it is very contradictory. It is very cynical. And I am pleased that we are holding the 

hearings today. 

I want to thank our panel for being here and for your leadership, 

and all of our young people, the faith community, all of the groups 

that have really been the wind beneath our wings throughout the 

country, who have insisted that we do this. 

Finally, let me just say that the President also has issued a signing statement on our bipartisan effort on the defense authorization 

bill, where we insisted that there should be no permanent military 

bases built in Iraq. Once again, subverting the law, issued a signing statement saying that this is something that, in essence, the 

Administration is not going to comply with. 

This governmental lawlessness that we see is unbelievably 

wrong. It is unconstitutional. And again, Mr. Frank, I want to 

thank you for your leadership and for helping us try to figure out 

how we can move forward to make sure that the law is complied 

with. We cannot allow another Rwanda to occur, where one million 

people died and our country did much of nothing except, after the 

fact, apologize. 

So thank you again. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And let me just note she called out 

the example of the South Africa sanctions bill. We are told sometimes by analysts that sanctions never work. One of the greatest 

moments I have had as a Member of Congress was to stand in 

Statuary Hall with a large number of other members and listen to 

one of the great men of this time or any time, I believe, Nelson 

Mandela, thank the Congress of the United States for passing the 

sanctions bill, and telling us that the passage of the sanctions bill 

by the United States over Ronald Reagan’s veto was a very important part of the effort to get rid of apartheid. Anyone who tends 

to dismiss sanctions has to confront the argument to the contrary 

of Nelson Mandela. 

We will now begin the testimony. We will start with Mr. Jerry 

Fowler, the executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition, with 

whom we worked. I have to say a lot of work went into this. It was 

not some simple statement, as it appeared at the first. But the staff 

on this committee, Ms. Lee’s staff and others, worked very hard to 

get this done. 

I would also make explicit what should be clear. This is a onesided panel because the other side of the argument refused to show 

up. We invited the Justice Department. We invited the State Department. We invited the White House. They refused to come. 

So this was the bipartisan effort to produce a panel that we 

think is representative of the argument, and we regret that those 

who we thought might have defended the position of the Administration declined to do so. 

Mr. Fowler, please. 

STATEMENT OF JERRY FOWLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAVE 

DARFUR COALITION 

Mr. FOWLER. Thank you very much, Chairman Frank, distinguished members of the committee, and Ms. Lee. Thank you for 

14

this opportunity to speak to you today about this issue, and thank 

you especially for your continuing leadership on it. 

As the president of the Save Darfur Coalition, I would like to 

ground our discussion today in the human reality of the crisis in 

Darfur, which this law was designed to help change. Ultimately, we 

can’t lose sight of the fact that it is human lives that have been 

destroyed and human lives that remain at risk. 

And I want to put a human face on it by telling a story from the 

first time that I went to the region. I traveled to Chad in May of 

2004, to the Sudanese border where refugees were coming across 

the border every day. 

And one day, near the end of that trip, after I had talked to dozens of refugees and heard their stories, I met a woman named 

Hawa. And you have to understand that the daily temperature 

there was 115 to 120 degrees. There were sandstorms. It was an 

incredibly harsh environment. 

I had heard all of these stories of suffering, and I met Hawa in 

her little hut, a little makeshift hut that she was living in with her 

four children. 

She told me about the day her village was attacked. On that day, 

her father was killed and her brother was killed. A cousin was 

killed. Thirty people in her village were killed, and her mother disappeared. And I have to admit that I suddenly felt overwhelmed 

by that suffering, by her suffering, and I wanted to get out of that 

hut and just get out of the oppressive atmosphere in there. 

And I started to back out of the hut, and she started speaking 

in a low voice. And I looked over at her, and tears were coming 

down her cheeks. And she was saying, ‘‘What about my mother? 

What about my mother? I don’t know where my mother is. I don’t 

know if she is dead or alive.’’ And I felt as though she was asking 

me to give her an answer, which I couldn’t possibly give. 

And the only thing that I could think to say was to ask her for 

her mother’s name and to tell her that I would bring her mother’s 

name back to America and tell Americans her mother’s name. And 

her mother’s name is Khadiya Ahmed. Khadiya Ahmed. 

And so now I am telling you that name, and I am telling you that 

as vast as this catastrophe is, it ultimately comes down to one 

woman who doesn’t know where her mother is and probably won’t 

know where she is until there is peace and security in Darfur. 

We are nearly 5 years into this conflict, and lives still hang in 

the balance even as we speak today. Over two million people remain displaced inside Darfur, and another couple of hundred thousand across the border in Chad. The best chance for improved security for civilians in Darfur is the full and effective deployment of 

a 26,000-strong United Nations/African Union civilian protection 

force. Yet more than 6 months after the Security Council unanimously authorized that force, only a third of it is on the ground, 

and those are ineffective African Union troops who simply switch 

their hats from green to blue. 

The primary reason that this force has not been deployed is that 

the Sudanese government is successfully impeding its deployment 

by stalling on basic technical issues. Then last month, its army 

brazenly went a step further and ambushed a clearly marked U.N. 

convoy. Lives will continue to be lost if the United States and the 

15

international community do not act more vigorously to impose swift 

and strong consequences on Sudan. 

While the United States had led international efforts to impose 

sanctions on the Sudanese regime, existing sanctions have not been 

enough to bring about the necessary change in the regime’s behavior. The legislation that we are discussing today, which was unanimously passed by this Congress, called SADA, the Sudanese Accountability and Divestment Act, was carefully crafted as another 

tool to generate concerted economic pressure on the government of 

Sudan. 

Its successful passage was the product of a vibrant partnership 

between House and Senate leaders, including the leaders here 

today, and a broad constituency of conscience that brings together 

a diverse group of civil society organizations, religious groups, and 

grassroots activists. 

By signing the bill, President Bush has enacted the extra legal 

protection offered to States that decide that their tax dollars shall 

no longer be invested in companies that help fund the genocide in 

Darfur. In my mind, the real negative impact of the signing statement so far has been the ambiguous message it sends to Khartoum 

and to the business interests that are contributing to Khartoum’s 

ability to carry out genocide in Darfur. 

Each day of delay in imposing real economic and political consequences on Sudan is another day that refugees will suffer, that 

girls and women will be exposed to rape while gathering firewood, 

and that Hawa, the woman I met in 2004, will wait to find her 

mother and return home. We ask for your continued help and leadership in ensuring that their days of suffering and waiting will be 

numbered. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fowler can be found on page 39 

of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Next, I am delighted to be joined by one of our 

leading scholars, the former chief judge of the District of Columbia 

Circuit Court, Judge Wald. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PATRICIA M. WALD, 

FORMER JUDGE AND CHIEF JUDGE, UNITED STATES COURT 

OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT 

Judge WALD. Thank you, Chairman Frank. And thank you, other 

members of the committee, Ranking Member Bachus, and Representatives Lee, Watt, and Green for inviting me to testify here 

today. 

I might say before I begin my testimony, which will focus on the 

signing statements aspect and put this signing statement hopefully 

in the context of the larger dispute about signing statements, I 

would like to put on the record the fact that I, too, have had some 

personal relationships with genocide. 

As you may know, I sat for several years—2 years—on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. And during 

that time, I sat on a genocide trial, in fact, the first genocide trial 

there, dealing with the notorious massacre of 7,000 to 8,000 young 

Bosnian men in one week at Srebrenica, called at that point the 

worst massacre since World War II. Hopefully Darfur will not 

reach that title. 

16

So I have seen firsthand the witnesses, hundreds of witnesses, 

testifying. I will cite only one woman witness in this genocide, who 

said, ‘‘In one week I lost my father, my husband, my son, and 20 

male relatives,’’ gone in one week in that genocide. 

The second point, and then I will move on to the focus of my testimony, is that I have done work since leaving both courts with 

international foundations that deal with some of these problems of 

atrocities and genocide abroad. And I have come to know how important is the role of finance in these genocides. 

For instance, even the Bosnian genocide was financed, in a sense, 

by the government of Yugoslavia. I mean, all of the soldiers were 

being paid out of Belgrade. But even more relevant here, I am sure 

you are aware of the pending prosecution of Charles Taylor, the 

former president of Liberia, who has been indicted by the Sierra 

Leone court for his role in financing the terrible civil war and the 

atrocities attendant thereto, the blood diamonds, etc., in Sierra 

Leone. 

So I think this bill is especially important, as the last speaker 

noted, because of the arrogance with which the current government 

in Sudan and Darfur has defied international law, for instance, the 

International Criminal Court. And in this one instance, as I am 

sure you are aware, despite Administration opposition to the International Criminal Court, the United States did not veto in the Security Council the Security Council resolution to refer the Darfur 

case to the International Criminal Court, which has already 

brought down two arrest warrants against two high government officials in Darfur. 

Unfortunately, the premier has more or less thumbed his nose at 

those, has refused to give up the indictees, but not only that, with 

one of them he has appointed that particular indictee to oversee 

the deployment of humanitarian aid and the situations in the refugee camps in that country, which is sort of the ultimate thumb 

your nose. So I do think that financial sanctions are important. I 

will now go on to the main business. 

In terms of signing statements, I will make five points briefly 

about signing statements in general. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say, we have—although for a Friday 

with no votes it is a big turnout, we are not under a time constraint, so the 5-minute rule is pretty flexible. 

Judge WALD. All right. Well, I will try to stay within it anyway. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, if you did, Judge, you would have 46 seconds. 

[Laughter] 

The CHAIRMAN. I mean, I am no Rehnquist. But you go ahead 

and take your time. 

Judge WALD. All right. Okay. 

Mr. BACHUS. Yes. Actually, we are asking you to take longer. 

Judge WALD. Okay. I accept. 

As one of the speakers has already pointed out, the Constitution 

says nothing about signing statements. The Constitution is very 

clear in Article I, Section 7, that when a bill that has passed both 

Houses of Congress is presented to the President, quote from the 

Constitution, ‘‘If he approves, he shall sign it. But if not, he shall 

return it with his objections.’’ And it goes on to say, of course, that 

17

if both Houses re-pass it by a two-thirds vote, again a quote from 

the Constitution, ‘‘It shall become a law.’’ 

Now, this would seem to be relatively clear about the process by 

which a bill becomes law. Yet I would have to acknowledge that 

since the early 1800’s, Presidents of both parties have appended 

signing statements to bills that they have approved. 

Now, in most cases those signing statements are noncontroversial. They say, this is a great bill. I want to thank ‘‘X’’ and I want 

to thank ‘‘Y’’ for helping to pass it. Or even in cases of ambiguity, 

if a provision in a bill is ambiguous, nobody has appeared to controvert the President’s right to say, well, I want you to know that 

in construing this ambiguous provision, I am going to construe it 

in the following way. 

Now, what has caused controversy is where the President has 

said, I am not going to enforce this particular provision because I 

think it is unconstitutional, or what we call the constitutional 

avoidance interpretation, in which he says, if I interpret it in a certain way, then I will consider it unconstitutional. So I am not going 

to interpret it in that way regardless of how clear the congressional 

intent is that it should be interpreted in a particular way. 

Now, one of the scholars who studied this at much greater depth 

than I have, certainly, has said that up to 1981, there were 100 

such provisions which had been challenged constitutionally by the 

whole number of Presidents up to that time. But actually, in only 

12 cases had the President gone on not to enforce the law afterwards, after complaining. 

And again, candor acknowledges that even in recent times, some 

of our Presidents, Democratic as well as Republican, have used this 

device. For instance, President Carter refused to abide by the rider 

to an appropriations bill that prohibited his using funds to put in 

effect his amnesty plan. He went ahead and used them. Somebody 

attempted to sue, and the court threw the case out and said there 

was no standing. And so his program went ahead. 

Now, President Reagan began using the constitutionally objecting signing statements much more plentifully than had prior Presidents. He also advanced, through his Attorney General, Edwin 

Meese, the notion that courts in construing a statute ought to look 

at presidential signing statements, and got them reproduced along 

with legislative history in the U.S. Code and Congressional Service. 

However, I stop here to point out there have been very few instances in which courts have actually cited signing statements. 

There have been a few, but not very many. And also, they have 

generally used them in a confirmatory way to say, well, we arrive 

at this conclusion by ourselves, according to the other evidence, but 

the signing statement goes along with them. I know of no instance 

in which a court has said, well, I am going to depend on this signing statement as some kind of controlling evidence to say that the 

law is unconstitutional. 

Now, up until the second President Bush, again relying on some 

of the scholars, 600 provisions since the beginning of our history 

had been objected to constitutionally by all of the Presidents combined. As of the near end of President Bush, the second President 

Bush’s term—and I don’t have the exact number because, to my 

knowledge, it hasn’t been compiled—but it is well over 800 sepaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
18

rate provisions in his two terms have been constitutionally objected 

to in a way either that says, I will not enforce, but usually somewhat similar to the one in this particular signing statement, which 

says, I will interpret it in a way that meets my constitutional objections to it, and I will enforce it in that way only. 

The CHAIRMAN. Judge, let me ask you so I get it right. You are 

saying prior to January 20, 2001, it was 600, and since then it has 

been 800? Is that— 

Judge WALD. Over 800, but I don’t have the exact. 

The CHAIRMAN. 600 total entire before? 

Judge WALD. Provisions. Provisions. The numbers get sometimes 

confusing because some people talk about the number of statements— 

The CHAIRMAN. You are talking about provisions. Yes. 

Judge WALD. —but one statement can have a lot of different provisions. And I am taking my numbers from the American Bar Association task force report. 

Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman, if I could add to that. 

Judge WALD. Go ahead. 

Mr. BACHUS. The signing statements, as you have said, they 

started under President Reagan— 

Judge WALD. Well, they— 

Mr. BACHUS. —and I think actually before that. 

Judge WALD. Yes. 

Mr. BACHUS. But, I mean, I think the first common— 

Judge WALD. They escalated. They escalated. 

Mr. BACHUS. And I agree with your statement that most of them 

do not challenge—or a growing number. For instance, President 

Clinton, 18 percent actually challenged. 

Judge WALD. Right. 

Mr. BACHUS. The rest were supportive of the legislation. 

Judge WALD. Right. 

Mr. BACHUS. The distinction between that and this Administration is that 78 percent of them through September of last year were 

objecting to the bill or saying they were going to enforce it in only 

a certain way. So there is a growing tendency not so much to have 

signing statements but to say that they are not going to enforce it 

or that they object to the—or that they will enforce it in a certain 

way. 

Judge WALD. Yes. You are absolutely right, Representative Bachus. And the numbers that are in my more formal statement point 

out that those numbers have gone up. And President Clinton 

stayed with that trend. He had, I think the number was 105 provisions that he objected to constitutionally. But the numbers since—

I think all experts agree that the numbers since President Bush II 

have gone up exponentially. 

But the other difference about the current use of them is, in the 

past, it is pretty well been confined sometimes to a particular provision that has come up here or a particular provision that has 

come up there. 

But the repeated use in the Bush II signing statements of mechanical, ritualistic, boilerplate—those are what some of the scholars call them—designations which don’t tie down any specifics as 

to the reasoning, as indeed this one doesn’t, but use terms like 

19

‘‘unitary executive’’ or ‘‘commander in chief powers’’ or ‘‘the President’s exclusive power in foreign relations’’—for instance, the unitary executive has been used, that term, ‘‘This is in violation of 

principles of the unitary executive,’’ 82 times. 

And I might add here that although I have no notion that there 

is a connection, in past signing statements, very often ‘‘unitary executive’’ has been used to constitutionally object to provisions in 

congressional enactments that required subordinate members of 

the cabinet or the agencies to report directly to Congress. 

I don’t know if that has any relationship to why you got a negative response to your pleas for a government witness here. But I 

know that it is a recurrent theme that the President says, no, my 

people can’t go directly to Congress. It has to come up through me. 

Now, the American Bar Association task force on which I served 

as a member, and many other scholars, say there really is no constitutionally valid justification for signing a statement by the President and then saying, I am not going to enforce it, or I am only 

going to enforce it in a way that is contrary to the clear congressional intent. 

This, ironically, is a fairly strict constructionist theory. But in 

the Supreme Court case of Clinton v. New York, the Supreme 

Court did say that even when Congress authorized a line item veto, 

it was not constitutional. Justice Stevens wrote the opinion, saying, 

look, the Constitution says how a bill becomes law. And maybe it 

is hard sometimes. Maybe it means tough choices. But the Founding Fathers meant there to be tough choices, and that is the way 

it is. 

Now, again, I have to point out that this is not a unanimous theory. As I am sure you are well aware, during President Clinton’s 

term, Walter Dellinger, who is a much respected colleague, legal 

colleague, did write a memorandum which said that under Article 

III, the President has the duty to see that the laws are faithfully 

executed, and he therefore has the right to refuse to execute a law 

that he believes unconstitutional if he also believes that the Supreme Court will uphold his view, even if the Supreme Court has 

not yet done so. I don’t buy into that theory, but it certainly does 

have— 

The CHAIRMAN. Just so we can—what was his official position at 

the time he wrote that, Judge? 

Judge WALD. At the time of that, I believe he was head of the 

Office of Legal Counsel. 

The CHAIRMAN. Of Legal Counsel? 

Judge WALD. Right. And he wrote it—there were two memorandas. One was to Ab Mikva, who was White House Counsel. I 

don’t remember who the other one— 

The CHAIRMAN. But it was in his official capacity in the Justice 

Department? 

Judge WALD. Yes. It was in—oh, yes. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. I just wanted to make that clear. 

Judge WALD. It is in the official records. 

Mr. BACHUS. And Judge, let me ask. The case you referred to, 

that is the 1998 Supreme Court case? 

Judge WALD. The Clinton v. New York. 

Mr. BACHUS. On the line item veto? 

20

Judge WALD. Yes. I have it here someplace, but I am pretty sure 

that is the right date. 

Mr. BACHUS. Yes. Thank you. 

Judge WALD. But there was a follow-up, I mean, in all fairness 

to the Dellinger memo. The follow-up said, but the President ought 

to use any such power very cautiously, and in using it, he ought 

to take account of three things: one, its likely effects on individuals 

or entities; two, its effect upon the constitutional prerogatives of 

the President; but three, the likelihood of judicial resolution of the 

issue coming about. 

The CHAIRMAN. Judge, we should wrap up now because we have 

already started questioning you. 

Judge WALD. All right. I am—let me make four points about this 

signing statement. Just to conclude the other, no court has yet 

ruled which of those interpretations is correct. 

All right. As to this particular signing statement, four brief 

notes. One, it uses the same kind of cryptic, non-detailed reasoning 

as to why the President says that he will enforce it only in a manner that doesn’t conflict with his authority. In other words, even in 

the Department of Justice letter which preceded the passage, which 

I have a copy of, they never—they say there are laws, treaties, etc., 

etc., on the book that may conflict. They never cite one. 

I was trying myself to think about it. I can’t even speculate as 

to what kind of treaty or law on the books that they refer to but 

never tell us what they are. It does seem, and the ABA task force 

said, that if the President is going to do something as important 

as say, I am not going to enforce this law the way Congress meant 

to, he really needs to be specific in terms of what he thinks it conflicts with or what kind of situation he thinks could cause a problem. 

Okay. Secondly, in most cases where even President Bush has 

used these unitary executive signing statements in the past, he has 

been defending, in his own view, his own turf, namely, the executive power versus congressional encroachment upon that. Here we 

have a very enigmatic role that he is taking on because he has to 

admit that the preeminent role given by the Constitution is to the 

Federal Government. It is not to the executive alone. 

Certainly within the Federal Government under Article I, Section 

8, the primary role is given to Congress in regulating foreign commerce. So in effect, he is taking on a role of defending Congress 

against Congress’s own action, which is somewhat strange. And I 

point only to the steel seizure case in which Justice Jackson’s famous soliloquy said that even where there is any acknowledged 

shared power between the executive and Congress, the executive 

power is at its lowest ebb, where Congress has already legislated. 

And that is certainly true in this case. 

The third point is: It is unclear whether there can be a judicial 

resolution here. Theoretically, the President would have to move 

against the State if a State went ahead and divested, and he 

thought that that was interfering with his power. But it is very unclear in present law whether there would be standing, who would 

have standing, whether the courts would take such a case or not. 

So we don’t have any clear case where it will be settled by the 

courts. 

21

And my last point is: Some people have said, well, signing statements are not the problem. I mean, the President could go out and 

make a speech tomorrow night at the Hilton and say the same 

thing and it wouldn’t be any constitutional problem. It is the nonenforcement itself which poses the constitutional dilemma. 

Whether or not that is true, I want to point out that I believe, 

having worked in the Federal Government, that as a practical matter, signing statements do have real world effects. They may, as 

some people have alluded, have a deterrent effect because States 

don’t want to have a lawsuit even if they would win it eventually. 

Or we all know executive officials in the Administration have many 

areas in which they interact with the States and in which their 

‘‘benign-ness‘‘ or their antipathy could be very important in other 

areas. There are all sorts of ways of leveraging power, and so the 

States might have reason to worry about that. 

I will conclude there. 

[The prepared statement of Judge Wald can be found on page 53 

of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Judge. And we obviously 

had a hard time restraining ourselves, so we will get back to it. 

We are also very pleased to be joined by Paul Schwartz, who is 

a partner in Cooley Godward Kronish. People will note the witnesses were put together so we have people who have been primarily concerned with the specific subject, some legal experts, and 

then a State official who is the intended target of both our action 

and the signing statement. 

Mr. Schwartz, please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL H. SCHWARTZ, ESQ., PARTNER, COOLEY 

GODWARD KRONISH, LLP 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Bachus, members of the committee, and Representative Lee. I am 

proud to be, in addition to a partner in Cooley Godward Kronish, 

counsel to the Sudan Divestment Task Force. And I am grateful for 

the opportunity to testify today concerning the constitutionality of 

State and local divestment measures authorized by SADA in light 

of the President’s signing statement. 

Many people believe, Mr. Chairman, that targeted divestment 

from foreign companies that provide the most direct support for the 

government of Sudan is an essential tool in the fight to end the 

genocide in Darfur and to protect the financial and reputational interests of U.S. pensioners. 

SADA serves the important function of ensuring that those measures rest on solid constitutional ground. It does that by giving 

State and local divestment measures that comply with the terms 

of the statute the blessing of Federal law, thereby making them 

part of the Federal Government’s own policy response to the genocide. 

Despite signing the legislation, the President has tried to unsettle the constitutional ground by suggesting that even State measures explicitly authorized by Federal law might ‘‘interfere with implementation of national foreign policy,’’ and thus conflict with the 

Constitution’s vesting with the Federal Government of the exclusive authority to conduct foreign relations. 

22

In my view, the Administration’s argument is without any legal 

merit. Nevertheless, a risk exists that the signing statement could 

create a misimpression among States and local governments that 

are considering targeted Sudan divestment that SADA does not effectively protect their actions. I hope, therefore, that this hearing 

will reaffirm the solid constitutional ground on which State and 

local measures authorized by SADA rest. 

The constitutional analysis, in my view, really is straightforward. 

When the Federal Government properly enacts a law, that law embodies policy of the United States. It is policy of the United States. 

Consequently, when a law authorizes State measures that touch on 

foreign affairs, the Federal Government has expressed a judgment 

that the measures do not impede Federal foreign policy but rather 

complement that policy, are part of that policy. Accordingly, such 

measures cannot violate the constitutional principle that States 

may not unduly interfere with Federal foreign policy. 

And that is particularly so, I submit, when, as here, the President actually signs the legislation. As Judge Wald explained, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, the presentment clause, tells 

the President exactly what he must do when Congress passes a 

bill. If he approves it—‘‘approve’’ is the word that the Constitution 

uses—he shall sign it. But if not, he shall return it, in other words, 

veto it. 

By signing SADA, therefore, the President, in the words of the 

Constitution, approved it. It is especially difficult to see how a 

State action can be an unconstitutional interference with Federal 

foreign policy when it has been approved not only by Congress but 

by the President as well. 

In neither the Zschernig case nor the Garamendi case from the 

Supreme Court, two cases that the Justice Department has cited 

in a letter for the Administration’s position—in neither one of those 

cases did the Supreme Court hold that State measures authorized 

by Federal law could somehow constitute an unconstitutional interference with U.S. foreign policy. 

The Administration again in this Justice Department letter from 

October 2007 seems to take the position that because Article II of 

the Constitution confers on the President certain powers to conduct 

foreign affairs, that Executive Branch policies with respect to foreign relations somehow can trump even properly enacted Federal 

law like SADA. 

That is not so. In our constitutional system, Congress, too, plays 

an important role in foreign affairs, especially when, as with investments in and divestment from foreign companies, it involves 

the regulation of foreign commerce. 

The President’s signing statement does nothing to change this 

constitutional analysis. Presidential signing statements do not have 

the force of law. They are simply statements of opinion. In my 

view, in this case, that opinion is wrong. 

Because SADA reflects the explicit policy judgment of the Federal Government, articulated by Congress and approved by the 

President, State and local divestment measures that comport with 

the statute also comport with U.S. policy regarding Sudan and the 

genocide, States and local governments should feel confident that 

23

their actions are fully consistent with the United States Constitution. 

Once again, I thank the committee, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schwartz can be found on page 

43 of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. 

And finally, a very important witness, my new neighbor, Frank 

Caprio, who is the general treasurer of the State of Rhode Island, 

and very much in the forefront of this movement, and is one of the 

State officials who has really been put in the vortex of this by 

whatever conflict might have arisen from the signing statement. 

Treasurer Caprio, please. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE FRANK T. CAPRIO, GENERAL TREASURER, OFFICE OF THE RHODE ISLAND GENERAL TREASURER 

Mr. CAPRIO. Thank you, Chairman Frank, and I hope you are 

over the loss of the Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday. We are still 

suffering the effects in Rhode Island. 

The CHAIRMAN. I know. But I have regained the ability to go up 

and down Route 1, so that is a compensation. 

Mr. CAPRIO. Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, and 

Representatives Lee, Watts, and Green, it is an honor to be here 

today with you. 

Chairman Frank, I especially liked your reverse Houdini story 

today. I grew up in a household where I was one of five children, 

and my mom—her affectionate nickname from my dad was Houdini 

because whenever there was any extra money in the household, it 

disappeared. My dad would say she pulled a Houdini. But really, 

she was spending it on the kids. She wasn’t spending it on herself. 

But it was a very common discussion in the household of how Houdini made the money disappear. 

My name is Frank Caprio, and I am chairman of the State Investment Commission of Rhode Island and the elected General 

Treasurer of Rhode Island. As a fiduciary of a State that successfully passed divestment legislation in June of 2007, I am here before you today to thank you for passing the Sudan Accountability 

and Divestment Act, and to highlight the aspects of the Act that 

are important to the States, Federal authorization of divestment 

and protection from litigation. 

In the most basic sense, divestment from Sudan represents a 

choice by the State to invest its money in concert with the value 

of its citizens. Accordingly, States possess both the right and the 

capacity to invest based on social, humanitarian, and financial values, as long as those decisions are consistent with prudent investment standards. The targeted approach to divestment followed successfully in Rhode Island and in other States addresses these concerns while upholding rigorous financial standards. 

Having passed this recent act, Congress is well aware that targeted divestment works. To see proof, you need not look further 

than the recent withdrawal from the Sudan of Europeanheadquartered powerhouses ABB and Siemens, who cited divestment as their motivation. And last spring, while we in Rhode IsVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
24

land were considering our State act, which was signed into law, 

Rolls Royce, PLC withdrew from the Sudan. 

It is becoming obvious that investment in a regime committing 

genocide carries too high a risk to justify the pursuit of doing business in such a region. These companies’ actions are tremendous 

victories, and a call for the States to continue on this course. The 

passage of this Act serves to create a divestment framework, end 

ambiguity, and galvanize the States’ rights to act in their own financial as well as humanity’s best interests. 

The President’s murky signing statement reinstates the fear of 

legal action that this Act was intended to remove. It is 

counterintuitive that an Act which intends to end ambiguity on the 

issue of Sudan divestment would be accompanied by a presidential 

statement that opens the very door to the ambiguity by placing the 

Act at the President’s potential discretion. 

If we truly seek to protect commerce in the face of divestment, 

then we must uphold the tenets of this Act to its highest degree, 

ensuring the enforcement of a uniform procedure. We cannot afford 

to take an ambiguous stand on the genocide in Darfur. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007 displays the Federal Government’s power to 

enable States to join a collaborative movement, allowing even the 

smallest State in our Nation like Rhode Island, even though our 

pension fund is over $8 billion, to leverage the collective strength 

of this great union to put an end to one of the generation’s greatest 

genocides. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Caprio can be found on page 36 

of the appendix.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Treasurer Caprio. 

I just want to say this bill, it seemed like a simple idea, even to 

me. And it took a lot of work to get it into this form. 

And I just want to acknowledge the staff—on Congresswoman 

Lee’s staff, Christos Tsentas, as they began the bill; Jim Segel, Dan 

McGlinchey, and Deb Silberman of the Democratic side on the Financial Services Committee; and Joe Pinder and Anthony Cimino 

on the Republican side. I think one of the reasons we got a signing 

statement is that the bill was pretty unassailable in any other way. 

So we take some pride in that. 

I am now going to begin with our colleague from California, who 

has a plane to catch. And so the author of the bill, the gentlewoman from California, is recognized for 5 minutes for questioning. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate 

you allowing me to ask this question because I do have to leave for 

California. But this was such an important hearing today. And I 

want to thank you again, and Mr. Bachus, for holding this. This 

is so important in oversight and in making sure that the people of 

Darfur somehow, someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, are 

able to live their lives, and those who are still alive return home. 

First, let me just say, Judge Wald, you mentioned the signing 

statement dealing with the tax money as it relates to establishing 

permanent bases in the National Defense Authorization Act, which 

I mentioned in my opening statement. I hate to say, I really could 

take this personally but I won’t for the present. 

25

These are both my provisions, one, my ‘‘no permanent bases,’’ 

which we have been working on for years. It has been written into, 

I think, the law at least 8 times, into appropriations and authorization bills. And we have worked in a bipartisan way to make sure 

that the President understands the will of the American people. 

And he—again, a signing statement on that, and now here on 

SADA. 

So it is quite amazing to me. And I wanted to just ask you, or 

Mr. Schwartz, or both of you: Mr. Schwartz, you mentioned that 

you believe that this had no force of law but was a statement of 

opinion, in terms of the signing statements. 

But I guess how do we ensure that the statements of opinion 

don’t begin to subvert the law? And as I said in my opening statement, I think this is a very cynical attempt to undermine and subvert the law. But how do we make sure that doesn’t happen, or do 

you think that is the reason for some signing statements, especially 

this one? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Well, I think that is a very difficult question, 

Representative Lee. I can’t speak for the Administration. I certainly would not attempt to speak for— 

The CHAIRMAN. But we might as well try. They refused. 

[Laughter] 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. I will pass. But the only way to get true resolution of the legal issue, the constitutional issue, is litigation and a 

resolution by the courts. I think that would be unfortunate. I think 

that is unnecessary. And I think perhaps that is one of the reasons 

that the Administration is not here today defending their legal position. In my view, the position is indefensible. 

What you are really asking is: How can we protect against the 

practical—not the legal so much, but the practical—consequences, 

if any, of the signing statement? I don’t have the answer to that. 

I am not sure that the ABA task force has the answer to that, although the ABA task force has recommendations. And perhaps 

Judge Wald will speak about that. 

I do think that proceedings like these, statements by the Congress making clear that the President’s view of the constitutionality, or purported view of the constitutional issues, is not the 

view of Congress and not the view of the House and not the view 

of the committee with respect to these constitutional issues, may 

help. 

But ultimately, in the case of SADA, I believe that the constitutional analysis sort of will stand on its own and should stand on 

its own. And that is why I am hopeful and I am confident that 

States and local governments considering divestment measures 

who might be deterred by the President’s signing statement will 

look at the analysis, and it will be sufficiently clear to them that 

the President is wrong. And if they have any questions, I am happy 

to help explain it. 

Judge WALD. I certainly agree with my colleague here that, as 

Learned Hand once said, litigation is to be eschewed at all costs 

if possible. However, I do think—I am sure that the members of 

the committee are aware that there are several pending bills in 

both houses—I don’t know how far they have gone along—which 

would allow the Congress to litigate the signing statement itself beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
26

fore the President has attempted to carry it out in any way. How 

far they will go and whether or not the courts will say that they 

in turn are constitutional as presenting a case in controversy remains to be seen. 

I do agree that one of the really tricky and unfortunate things 

about the signing statement is that when the President, as the 

chief executive, says something and says, this is a terrible law; I 

signed it, but it is unconstitutional and I am not going to enforce 

it, that does send a message down through the bureaucracy and 

through the executive officials. And that is really the unfortunate 

thing about signing statements. 

So the only way to combat that short of getting actually a court 

to say no, it is constitutional is, I think, through the reinforcement 

you suggested of your own resolutions, perhaps many of the States, 

such as the prior witness, reaffirming their belief that Congress 

has laid down the law. And I might say that this signing statement, as with most of the other constitutionally based signing 

statements, is an attempt by the executive to empower itself in 

those areas to pick and choose, cherry pick in a law, when they will 

enforce it, when they will not, and not to tell you about that beforehand. 

I think that goes against certainly the spirit as well as the letter 

of the Constitution because this has arisen, as you well know, with 

the FISA legislation, with several other pieces of legislation that 

Congress passes where the executive says, ‘‘Ah-hah, you can pass 

a law, but I have this residual power back there. So I will decide 

when to enforce it or not, and I won’t tell you ahead of time when 

that is likely to be.’’ 

So I think that this current experience with 800 of these in two 

terms should galvanize both the legal profession, the States in this 

case and Congress itself, to reinforce their belief that is not the 

way the Founding Fathers meant to run the government under the 

Constitution. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. What you were saying, 

Judge Wald and Mr. Schwartz, in your answers completely summarizes. That is exactly where we are. We didn’t have this hearing 

idly. We had it because we are worried about the signing statement’s impact because we are talking here about encouraging people and not discouraging people. And it may be our move. 

The gentleman from Alabama. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. This question is for the whole panel. 

There was a Reuters article yesterday that OFAC, Office of Foreign 

Assets Control, had announced they are going to institute civil actions against many companies they say have breached U.S. sanctions against doing business with the Sudanese government. And 

they are going to be able to impose fines up to $2 million. Prior to 

the legislation, I think the limit was $50,000. 

I have two questions. Number one, do you think that will be an 

effective tool against companies doing business with Sudan? 

Well, and the second one you can comment at the same time. It 

is my impression that the United States has really been in a leadership role of applying sanctions. I know other countries have been 

aggressive, too. And then other countries have not been at all, including China. But how do you see number one, OFAC’s actions, 

27

as being a positive? And number two, how is the rest of the world 

responding to the genocide? 

Mr. CAPRIO. I could respond to that as chair of a fund, an institutional investor. The more exposure that is given to the entities that 

are doing business in the Sudan, the better. Right now the legislation that we passed in our State and the Federal legislation is 

going after the worst offenders. 

But if we can highlight across the board companies that are materially doing business there, maybe not to the level of some of the 

goliath multinational entities, but now those entities will shift 

from—the entities that you are citing will shift now into a different 

category that will allow institutions like us to then take action. So 

I welcome the scrutiny that they are going to receive. 

Mr. BACHUS. And I didn’t know if the panel was aware of OFAC’s 

actions. Treasury has actually taken action. I hadn’t seen any encouragement or participation of the State Department. But it 

seems almost as if even the two departments of the executive 

branch are going in two different directions. 

But are there any other comments? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. I would just make two points, Ranking Member 

Bachus. One is that the genocide obviously is an extraordinary horror that requires extraordinary measures, as I understand it. The 

Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act was not intended to be 

a replacement for existing Federal sanctions but a supplement to 

it. So any enforcement of sanctions and ratcheting up of sanctions 

is a positive development. 

Secondly, although this is not my area of expertise, I do know 

that my client, the Sudan Divestment Task Force, has been very 

active in moving its efforts overseas as well, or I should say expanding its efforts overseas. And there is a lot of work going on in 

Europe now. 

I would say they are probably behind where we are in the United 

States in terms of the divestment movement. But the divestment 

movement is ratcheting up and moving with our European allies. 

As well, there have been statements made by, I believe, the European parliament in the last year supporting targeted divestment. 

And so it does need to be a worldwide effort. 

Mr. FOWLER. If I could just add a couple of things to that. I think 

as important as divestment is, and it is very important, it has got 

to be part of concerted economic pressure against the government 

of Sudan. And sanctions are one part of that. So vigorous enforcement of the unilateral sanctions that the United States already has 

announced is very, very important. And civil actions would be part 

of that. 

The second thing that I would want to say is that, as you point 

out, other countries have lagged behind the United States. And 

that is one of the things that is so negative about the signing statement, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is the ambiguous signal that it sends to the rest of the world for the President to sign 

the legislation and then cast doubt on it at the same time. 

And the irony of it is, and my friend Adam Sterling, who is here 

behind me from the Sudan Divestment Task Force, has said this 

many times, is that before this legislation was passed, the Administration never suggested it was going to act against States or muVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:49 Apr 02, 2008 Jkt 041178 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\41178.TXT TERRIE
28

nicipalities for divesting. So it is implausible to think that they will 

do it now. And in that sense, the signing statement is unnecessary 

damage to the whole cause. 

Then the final point I would make, which picks up on what Paul 

just said, is that internationally, there is a growing movement. 

More diplomacy is needed by the United States. But in terms of 

civil society, the Save Darfur Coalition and other groups here in 

the United States are working with partners in other countries to 

bring more pressure to bear on their governments. And that is 

going to be a very, very important part of the effort going forward. 

Judge WALD. The only additional comment I would make is that 

I think the financial is going to be increasingly important because 

according to what I hear and read in the papers, the U.N. attempt 

to set up the military force, a multinational military force, has faltered. 

Here the Americans have been better than most of the other 

countries. They have actually been willing to contribute and have 

contributed, not only manpower but equipment. But it has been a 

very slow process trying to get the other countries to contribute the 

helicopters or any equipment. 

So it may be that the burden, at least for a while, is going to lie 

on the financial end. 

Mr. BACHUS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am going to call on my colleague, Mr. Green. 

But let me say I appreciate the gentleman’s calling our attention 

to this article. I asked for a copy of the article. It is just an interesting timing issue here. 

‘‘U.S. Prepares to Act Against Sanction Busters.’’ And this is an 

announcement that they plan to take some action in a month or 

two. I am sure they do. I am also sure that the fact that they now 

decided in a month or two was not entirely unrelated to the fact 

that we are here this morning. 

So I welcome that, and maybe we will have some more hearings, 

and maybe they will do more things. But it is clear as you read this 

that they are waiting for the regs, and in a month or two they are 

going to do some things. 

The gentleman from Texas. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, of course, thank you 

and the ranking member for having this hearing. 

And I would like to make it as clear as possible, conspicuously 

so: I do not question the motives of the President. I think that people with the best of intentions can do bad things. I don’t think that 

this was done with malice aforethought. But I do know this: If a 

person pulls out a gun and he kills me, whether it is by accident 

or design, I am still dead. 

We are dealing with life and death in Sudan. Because you have 

the right to do it doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do. It 

was morally wrong. Whether it was legally right is debatable. It 

was morally wrong for the President to obfuscate this issue with 

this signing statement when lives are at risk. 

Constitutional scholars can debate these issues ad infinitum. But 

the moral question is what I contend the President will have to answer for, the morality of, at a time of death, when people—I have 

been to Sudan—when people are literally living on the ground in 

29

villages where they don’t have water, where they don’t have the 

necessary cover from the elements, and where people are being 

raped—it is morally wrong for the President to do this. 

And I stand by what I said. He really is not going to be judged 

kindly by history. And I appreciate all those who have contrary 

views, and their friendship is still valued. I still love the President, 

as a matter of fact. He is a friend. This will not change how I feel 

about him. It will change how I feel about what he has done here. 

I condemn the actions, not the man. His actions are going to create a circumstance that we need not have to deal with. And I yield 

back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. We don’t know whether 

it will interfere with the way he feels about the gentleman, but 

that is the nature of this business. 

I am going to take some more time here. I appreciate very much 

this testimony. I have two sets of questions. One, of course, deals 

with the specificity of the impact of the signing statement on this 

cause, and then on the broader constitutional question. 

Let me say, in furtherance toward what the gentleman said, I do 

not believe that this indicates any less interest in the Administration’s view in trying to combat the genocide, taken by itself. And 

indeed, the fact that we got a statement today from the Treasury 

Department, from OFAC, announcing that in a month or two they 

are going to take further action, without question that was generated by the need to offset any negative impression that this hearing would cause. 

And I accept that fact. They continue to care a lot about that. 

The problem is the order of priorities. This is an Administration 

that cares more about enhancing executive power than about the 

specific issue. And the problem is, judged in the abstract, yes. They 

are very concerned about the genocide. But when it comes to protecting the supremacy not of the Federal Government but of the 

presidency, then everything else gets subordinated. That is what is 

involved here. 

And if you read this, it is clear. And this goes to the point I think 

Mr. Fowler made that, well, why didn’t they object when some 

States did this on their own? Because that did not codify what they 

saw as a threat to executive power in the United States. It is when 

we recognize that—and of course, States on their own can’t immunize themselves from Federal lawsuits. 

And again, I have to stress the irony of some of the Administration papers here saying, oh, but you don’t want to take the rights 

away from the poor investors. I will tell you because this committee 

has jurisdiction over that, in the time that I have been ranking 

member and chairman, this is the first time that I can remember 

this Administration asserting any concern for anything that might 

diminish investor rights to protect themselves. They have been on 

the opposite side of every such issue. 

But what is clear is—and Mr. Fowler’s point makes it very well. 

They don’t object to the States doing that on their own because no 

real harm is being done. But they interfere with this bill’s effectiveness because the passage by this Act—and it is not—and I think 

this is the other important point I want to make, and Mr. Fowler’s 

point,I think, carries this out. 

30

Their arguments conflate the federalism argument versus the executive versus legislative argument. Judge Wald correctly pointed 

out that they are using the unitary executive argument really to 

argue against Congress, not within the Administration. 

If this bill gave the head of OFAC the statutory power to make 

these decisions, then there would be a unitary executive argument. 

It would be an argument that we had lodged power in an inferior 

officer, and that undercut the President’s ability to make that decision. 

But obviously we don’t do that. So I think this is very clear. This 

is concern about presidential power because—and this notion that 

it violates the supremacy clause is just mind-boggling. How can it 

violate the supremacy clause, which protects the supremacy of laws 

passed by the United States, when we have passed a law and when 

we have done this delegation? So we are clearly talking here about 

executive versus legislative. This is what is at stake. And that 

sadly has trumped the genocide issue. 

So let me just ask again to Mr. Fowler and Mr. Caprio. And 

again, I want to stress to people, this is no minor quibble. As we 

in our frustration as a Nation search for ways more effectively to 

try to save the innocent victims in Darfur from murder and torture 

in huge numbers, we listen to the people who have been in the 

forefront, the people in the coalition. 

Mr. Fowler, am I correct that this was as high a priority that 

your group had for Congress to act on this past year? 

Mr. FOWLER. Well, yes. For congressional action, SADA was a 

priority. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. For us. Right. Obviously, there are other 

things the executive can do. 

But in fact, that underscores the point. This still leaves the executive in major control of this operation. This does not empower us. 

We don’t have delusions of grandeur here that by passing this Act, 

we have suddenly run rushing to the rescue. We wish we could. So 

it is a fairly minor addition to the arsenal, but it was the best we 

could do. 

And let me just ask again to Mr. Caprio, to make it explicit. You 

have talked about this. Clearly, when—well, let me ask: When you 

worked with your colleagues in the Rhode Island legislature to pass 

the divestment bill, what kind of opposition did you get? 

Mr. CAPRIO. Minimal if any opposition. It was unanimously 

passed on both sides of the legislature and signed by the governor. 

The CHAIRMAN. Were there any arguments aimed at you? Did 

you hear from anybody who said, well, you have these fiduciary responsibilities? 

Mr. CAPRIO. No. We had widespread support in the community 

and— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is encouraging. We have heard from 

others, though, for instance in the mutual fund area, that they are 

concerned. And Mr. Schwartz and Judge Wald summarized this 

well. 

The purpose of this bill is to encourage people not to be intimidated by the threat of lawsuit. That is all the bill does. And so 

when the Administration asserts its right to undercut it, it undercuts the heart of the bill, which is the protection against lawsuits. 

31

And as I said, I think it is clear that it is this Administration’s 

relentless insistence on enhancing executive power beyond any conception that has previously been here. And Judge Wald is right. 

She said the unitary theory of the executive. 

I was debating on the Floor when we were talking about whether 

or not, if Congress passed a law requiring search warrants for 

wiretaps of Americans, whether that would be binding on the 

President. I must say, when I first came here, the notion that we 

would be debating whether an act of Congress signed into law was 

binding on the President seemed kind of remote. 

And I was told by one of my Republican colleagues that it did 

violate the Constitution, our effort to bind the President, because 

it violated the unitary theory of the executive. And I thought I 

knew the Constitution pretty well, but I couldn’t remember what 

that was. 

So I asked. I asked him, well, where in the Constitution is this 

unitary executive? He didn’t know. They had not briefed him appropriately. And they were all whispering in his ear, which never 

helps when you are trying to say something. They are whispering 

in your ear. You better know it before then. 

So I was standing at the podium, and I said to a page, would you 

bring me a copy of the Constitution? We have it in Jefferson’s manual. And I looked it up, and there it was. And it says, the executive 

powers of the United States shall be lodged in the President. That 

is from which all this comes. 

And as Judge Wald made clear, that has no logical, conceivable 

argument about the right of the President vis-a-vis anybody else—

vis-a-vis the States, vis-a-vis the Congress, or the courts. 

And so out of that very common, very sort of commonplace, the 

executive powers shall be lodged in the President, we get this very 

broad assertion of power. And now we see what it means. It is powerful enough, their insistence on preserving this and diminishing 

the power of the Congress. And that is what this is aimed at, not 

so much the States. They want to diminish the powers of the Congress. 

So let me ask our two legal representatives here, Judge Wald 

and Mr. Schwartz: As you read this, am I correct? They make a 

federalism argument, but they also make a separation of powers 

argument. My view is that the federalism argument is not the real 

argument, that in fact that collapses. 

And in part I guess what they do is they can make a federalism 

argument only because they identify the Federal Government with 

the president, so that—I mean, if the Federal Government consists 

of, for the law-making powers, the President and Congress together, there is no federalism argument because it is an act of Congress. 

But they convert their separation of powers into a federalism argument by the strength of their separation of powers argument. 

The Federal Government is, for these purposes, only the President, 

and therefore it becomes the supremacy clause. 

I would ask you to comment on that. Judge? 

Judge WALD. I agree with your analysis. And I think even if you 

look at—parse the wording of the signing statement, the last couple 

of lines, it says, ‘‘However, as the Constitution vests the exclusive 

32

authority to conduct foreign relations with the Federal Government.’’ That is—the Federal Government consists of three 

branches, but relevant here are the two political branches, the 

President and the Congress. 

Then it jumps logically and says, ‘‘Because foreign relations is 

with the Federal Government’’—that is the president and Congress—‘‘the Executive Branch shall construe and enforce this legislation so it doesn’t conflict with that authority.’’ 

So it jumps from the fact that the power is in the Constitution 

in two branches to one branch shall decide, shall make the decision 

as to whether or not there is going to be any conflict, both as to 

federalism and as to the inter-branch between Congress and the 

President. 

So it doesn’t logically follow. It is mixed there. But I think the 

intent is clear. I think you are right. This is a situation where it 

is another in 801 statements about the plenary—almost plenary 

power of the executive. 

And just one last thought. Perhaps one reason why you are not 

getting any official representative at this hearing and why they 

would like to talk to you privately reinforces the notion that you 

would be doing the right thing by keeping this front and center 

publicly, both through hearings and through resolution because I 

think it is probably going to be embarrassing for the Administration to have to come forth and oppose this publicly with reasons, 

none of which we really have gotten so far. 

I think they probably are well aware of the sentiments. Perhaps 

it will make them rethink, as Representative Green suggests. But 

if not, it will at least put it out front and center, and there certainly will be public reaction to the fact that they won’t debate this 

out on the merits, whatever their position is. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I appreciate that analysis of the signing statement. That was what I was getting at. I hadn’t made that 

particular connection, but you are very clear. 

The signing statement begins by asserting Federal power, and 

then sub silentio converts that into— 

Judge WALD. Into executive. 

The CHAIRMAN. —the President. So the federalism argument 

falls away. It is a presidential supremacy argument. And as somebody mentioned, when we talk about foreign commerce, that is one 

where Congress in fact is given constitutional powers. 

Judge WALD. Preeminently. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. So even the constitutional justification on foreign 

policy can’t bear out. 

Mr. Schwartz? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Yes. I would just add that I think—I certainly 

agree with the chairman and Judge Wald on this point. I think another place that we see the point is in the Justice Department’s October 26, 2007, letter to the Senate, at page 3. This is really the 

letter where the Administration’s legal argument is set forth in 

somewhat greater detail. 

The CHAIRMAN. But actually, if you notice, it is addressed to the 

Honorable Richard Cheney. I think they persuaded him. 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. I understand. It says, ‘‘Dear Mr. President,’’ that 

as well, President of the Senate. 

33

But it goes on to say at page 3—and this I view as to be the 

heart of the Administration’s argument—Section 3 of the bill, 

which is the State divestment authorization, by its terms, the Department of Justice concedes, ‘‘could remove the threat of the direct 

statutory or Article I foreign commerce clause preemption on which 

the Supreme Court relied in the Crosby case.’’ 

So that really goes to the point that you were making, Mr. Chairman, with respect to ordinary preemption under the supremacy 

clause. I think you noted that argument was made by the State Department that there is a supremacy clause problem here. This 

statement by the Justice Department acknowledges that authorization through an act of Congress logically removes any supremacy 

clause or preemption. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am glad you called attention to that because 

then the following— 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Then the next sentence is really where the rubber meets the road. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. You want to read that one, too? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Sure. ‘‘But it is by no means clear that Section 

3 of the bill would, or that Federal legislation could, remove any 

Federal preemptive force that flows from the Constitution’s grant 

to the President of certain foreign affairs powers under Article II.’’ 

So that is really what this argument is all about. And I submit 

that there are numerous Supreme Court cases, I count the Steel 

Seizure cases, in which the Supreme Court held that President 

Truman, notwithstanding his Article II powers as commander in 

chief— 

The CHAIRMAN. During wartime, in fact, the most powerful. 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Correct—could not trump a Federal statute that 

was enacted pursuant to— 

The CHAIRMAN. What I also appreciate, which I think you mentioned, the foreign commerce power is specifically given to Congress. And we are talking here about commerce. We are not talking 

about foreign relations in the natural sense. We are not telling 

them whether they can or can’t send an ambassador to Sudan, or 

how to vote in the U.N. It is regulation of that. 

So this is just—I appreciate both of you pointing these things 

out. It becomes very clear. This is an insistence on enhancing executive power and diminishing Congress posing as federalism when 

there is no federalism. 

And I guess the final question—because they—it is interesting 

that the State Department cites the supremacy clause and Justice 

cites some of the other—basically what we gave—maybe I am a little bit reassured. It is State that gets the Constitution blatantly 

wrong and Justice that gets the foreign policy blatantly wrong. So 

at least they make their major errors in the other area. 

But here is one statement from Justice. And I think it is a red 

herring, and I would ask the two lawyers to respond to this. It is 

a reference to—oh, I had it and lost it again. They worry that a 

State might pass a preemption statute that explicitly conflicts with 

the Federal statute. If that happened, what would be the clear result? Judge? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. If— 

Judge WALD. Go ahead. 

34

The CHAIRMAN. If a State were to pass a divestment statute that 

specifically contradicted a Federal law, what would happen? 

Mr. SCHWARTZ. I believe it would be unconstitutional under the 

supremacy clause. 

Judge WALD. And a court would so hold it, probably. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. That is the red herring. I mean, one thing 

they say is, well, suppose under this bill a State passed a law that 

conflicted. And the answer is, the supremacy clause wins and it is 

out there. So it is clear this is just about the executive. 

Let me just summarize. I was very pleased by my colleague from 

Alabama, who has been very strong on this. And actually, the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters, and I joined him and the 

former chairman of this committee, Mr. Leach, in frankly opposing 

the Clinton Administration’s Treasury Department in pressing for 

debt relief when they thought it was imprudent, particularly for Africa. He is, I think, returning that consistency to principle here. 

We really do want to say to the Administration, and I know that 

they are not talking but they are listening: The fight over executive 

power can really be fought elsewhere. Please, is my plea to the 

President, do not undercut our effort here to increase our ability 

to protect the people of Darfur by dragging this bill into that battle. 

This is little enough to do. Every one of us is anguished by our 

inability to do more. But to undercut whatever this bill can do by 

dragging it into this fight over executive versus congressional 

power is unseemly. It is simply a refusal to exercise some moral 

discretion. 

There are plenty of areas in which we can fight between us, the 

Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, about power. Let’s 

not let the poor people, the victims of murder in Darfur, be dragged 

into this battle. 

And I know my colleague from Alabama intends to have some 

further conversations with the White House. If necessary, I am in 

favor of a resolution. Let every member of the House stand up, and 

our friends from the Save Darfur Coalition will be there, to say: Do 

not undercut this bill. 

But that oughtn’t to be necessary. I don’t think the Administration was thinking primarily of undercutting the Darfur situation. 

I think they ignored the fact that it could do it. A clarification that 

they in no way intended to vitiate the bill could be very helpful, 

and it could avoid further action. But if we don’t get that, then 

there will be further action. 

I thank the panel. This has been very useful. And it is not the 

last word on this subject, but I hope it is the next to last word because I hope the last word will be from the Administration clearing 

the thing up. 

The hearing is adjourned. And of course, anyone who wishes to 

submit—any of the members or any of the members of the panel 

who wish to submit further information may do so. 

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(35)

A P P E N D I X

February 8, 2008

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