Talk:Signing statement

message: At least one editor feels signing statement should concern a global phenomenon of signing statements, whereas another (myself) feels that the article's content is in practice exclusively American. The obvious solution is to copy this page's content to Signing Statement (United States) and to re-write a Signing Statment as a disambiguation page: with a link to Signing Statement (United States) for information concerning American practice (including the current controversy), and links to pages for such other nations as have them. Any thoughts on this? rewinn 16:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since no examples of signing statements by other than US Presidents have been presented, the globalized content is non-notable and has been deleted. Feel free to restore if examples are presented. rewinn 06:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: It's confusing to have this page. It implies that "Signing Statements" occur elsewhere in the world when even the US Signing Statements page states no other executives utilize Signing Statements. Furthermore the proper term seems to be associated exclusively with the interpretation of American constitutional law by the executive branch of American government. MM962 (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 07:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: POLL: Disambiguation page for signing statement vs. signing statement (United States)?

message: I have posted a webpage that provides the full text of all of George W. Bush's signing statements, as well the text of all laws referred to in the signing statements. Reading about the signing statements is helpful. Reading the signing statements, themselves, seems equally important for anyone who wants to speak authoritatively about them. I propose that these links should be added to the Wikipedia entry:
Annotated text
http://www.coherentbabble.com/signingstatements/signstateann.htm
FAQ page
http://www.coherentbabble.com/signingstatements/FAQs.htm
Unannotated text
http://www.coherentbabble.com/signingstatements/pressignstate.htm
: Good idea. While it would be 'better' to use a (no offense intended) more well-known site (perhaps Cornell Law School, or Findlaw), something is better than nothing.  rewinn 06:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree -- which is why I actually added a link to the homepage of the Coherent Babble database a couple of days ago. ;) Look for it as the fourth external link. (I was at a different IP at the time.) 67.33.138.73 01:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way: if the parent comment came from the creator of that signing satement collection, let me just state for the record: you are awesome, sir/madam. 67.33.138.73 01:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Full Text of George W. Bush's signing statements now available

message: I suggest this article should renamed to "Signing statement". This follows Wiki standards (compare Executive order to Presidential Executive Order) and also conforms to current usage where "signing statement", without the prefix Presidential and not as a proper noun, is used in the media. The statements issued by the US President carry the title "Statement by the President" Rillian 02:45, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed and moved. — BrianSmithson 16:43, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title

message: "As of 2006, George W. Bush, the current President, has issued over 500 signing statements." vs "However, Bush is challenging statues at a rate more than 2.5 times greater than his father with over 108 signing statements presenting over 750 different constitutional challenges as of April 2006."
:Could it be that some are referring to individual documents as ss while others are referring to statements within those documents? Esquizombi 00:26, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Boston Globe article that included the 750 amount was counting the number of new laws or sections of law that were challenged within a signing statement. A signing statement could challenge one or more statutes, so the count of challenges would be greater than the number of statements. Also, Chris Kelly, the political scientist who has analyzed signing statements groups them into three categories: rhetorical ("this is a great law"), political ("this law meets the need of our unions") and consitutional ("I'm signing this law, but won't enforce section 2 because it is an unconstitutional infringement on my powers as commander-in-chief"). Any data sourced from a Kelly document will generally only refer to consitutional statements. I don't think we yet have a clear count of total statements issued by president and are comparing apples to oranges in some of the counts. Rillian 12:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've borowed some of this for the article, since it's a very suitable explanation. If you could cite it, that'd be nice. --Barberio 14:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to clear this up, but I didn't notice the number 108 up there until now.  I think there will be two numbers - a number of statements and a (larger) number of challenges.  I'm just not sure what those are any more.--Ajdz 06:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

text: The Boston Globe graphic claims that Clinton challenged 140 statues - yet the Kelley 2003 paper says "Clinton used the constitutional signing statement less than his predecessor (105 to 146)". However, footnote 88 says he also he issued 265 in toto - but the remainder were rhetorical. I'm inclined to split Clinton's number out as 105, but I don't know how GW Bush's contributions should then be counted. --moof 18:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the problem is that since Constitutional Signing Statements can be vauge, it is dificult to address how many statutes they may influence. So there is no real quantifiable and stable metric that can be used. I'll write up something to discuss this on the article. --Barberio 13:04, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

text: This is where the split between various types of signing statements created by political scientists comes into play. Based on your quotes, I would say the Clinton issued 265 total signing statements, of which 105 included constitutional challenges. Those 105 constitutional statements challenged 140 different statutes. We need to find a count of total statements by president and then add the statutes challenged counts in table for better comparison. Rillian 01:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: How many signing statements by GWB?

message: Nice discussion on the topic. Nomen Nescio 17:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unlimited executive power?

message: After searching for the quotes in this section, I discovered that the whole paragraph had been lifted from an NYT article. I've deleted it from the article. 
The paragraph was uncited, and vauge about the cases involved. And I've had little luck finding the orginal cases. So I suggest we keep the content of the segment out of the article untill we have a second source to provide us the details.  --Barberio 15:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "lack persuasive authority" segment copyvio 

message: There was a reference to "toleration" of signing statements that didn't seemed sourced or npov; just what after all would be toleration of a signing statement and who would be doing it?  I deleted the text but would be interested in discussing, if anyone cares.
There was also language about the signing statements as notice of executive intent, which seemed relevant although not necessarily of legal significance. It might be better suited to its own section, since practice significant <> legal significance. rewinn 16:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Legal significance

message: The controversy over signing statements must be reported here from a neutral point of view (npov). That's why I heavily editted the most recently contributions.  If you feel strongly about signing statements, fine, that's a GOOD thing (and I agree with you ... see my own "signing statements" contributions on wikithepresident.org ) ... but wikipedia is not a blog. If your contributions are not npov , they'll go away and you've wasted your time. You can be more persuasive with npov anyway. rewinn 15:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I heavily trimmed the intro paragraph because it had a bunch of stuff repeated in the text, e.g. the grounds of the current controvery. Controversies should be mentioned in the intro, then fleshed out in the text. There was also some stuff implying that signing statements were something well known outside the USA, but there's no evidence for that given here (... I'm not saying they don't exist ... but if they are used in other countries, then such use should be mentioned in the article...). If this is a purely USA phenomenon, that should be mentioned briefly. Also, the use of the word "prerogative" (however it may be spelled) is POV; either "asserted perogative" would be more npov; anyway, it's a level of detail that belongs in the discussion of the controversy, not in the intro rewinn 06:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just don't leave too much information out. I like the shorter introduction, but it never mentions that signing statements often show how the president intends for the executive branch to interpret/implement the law. I'm restoring a phrase to that effect, which I think is sufficiently NPOV, now. 67.33.138.73 01:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree. The porrage was too hot, then it was too cold; now it is just right ;-) rewinn 02:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV the controversy

message: ::I heavily trimmed the intro paragraph because it had a bunch of stuff repeated in the text, e.g. the grounds of the current controvery. Controversies should be mentioned in the intro, then fleshed out in the text. There was also some stuff implying that signing statements were something well known outside the USA, but there's no evidence for that given here (... I'm not saying they don't exist ... but if they are used in other countries, then such use should be mentioned in the article...). If this is a purely USA phenomenon, that should be mentioned briefly. Also, the use of the word "prerogative" (however it may be spelled) is POV; either "asserted perogative" would be more npov; anyway, it's a level of detail that belongs in the discussion of the controversy, not in the intro rewinn 06:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just don't leave too much information out. I like the shorter introduction, but it never mentions that signing statements often show how the president intends for the executive branch to interpret/implement the law. I'm restoring a phrase to that effect, which I think is sufficiently NPOV, now. 67.33.138.73 01:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree. The porrage was too hot, then it was too cold; now it is just right ;-) rewinn 02:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Keep Introduction Short

message: Many recent United States signing statements cite the U.S. Supreme Court case INS v. Chadha.  Does anyone know anything about how this case is being applied to signing statements?  I don't understand the applicability.  This might make a good addition to this article, the INS v. Chadha article, or both. --Takeel 18:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I understand why this case is cited now.  I would like to add something to the article about it for the community's review in the near future. --Takeel 14:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please do. I would like to know (but too busy to do the research). Thanks 4 taking the lead on this! rewinn 02:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  I am unable to find citations to support my suspicion regarding this, so I can't add anything to the article regarding it. --Takeel 12:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[INS v. Chadha]] 

message: * Kevin Baastalk 14:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  development: ABA report completed 

message: The entire "Presidential Usage" section under references has numerous html errors, and the edit link doesn't seem to actually let me see the offending code. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.138.97.50 (talk • contribs) .
: Would you mind sharing some specifics? --Takeel 12:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some html errors 

message: I find the link to Hitler's Enabling Act to be very POV.  Now, I am no big fan of Bush or his use of signing statements, but the comparison to Hitler's grab for power looks silly to anyone who has seriously studied presidential signing statements.  They both increase the power of the executive branch, but that is where their similarities end-- signing statements are not legally binding, and their use is very limited, whereas the Enabling Act allowed Hitler virtually limitless, completely legal power.  If there were 200 different links to pages, I would say that the Enabling Act could be one of them, since it at least marginally related to the topic.  But with just three links, making one of them an unwarranted Nazi comparison seems pretty POV to me.  If you want to put some links that are much more relevant, try Presentment Clause, Unitary Executive, Executive (government), Line-Item Veto or Marbury V. Madison.
209.150.51.223 08:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your explanation. Now that you lay it out, I agree. I had assumed that the link was to something like Enabling act (United States) instead of the Nazi link; the latter would be not only POV but irrelevant to the article. Let me encourage you to get a user logon since your contribution is helpful.  rewinn 18:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are two articles in wikipedia Enabling_act (the concepts) and Enabling_Act the specific event in Germany.  The intention was the former not the latter.  The Nazi reference is POV, and a typo.  I have fixed the reference and added your recommended links.  Thanks for the edits.  --racecarradar 21:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per above, I changed Enabling act to Enabling act (United States), since the latter is more relevant to this article and the former gives an undesirable prominence to "The most famous such law is the German Enabling act of 1933, enacted at the beginning of the rise of the Third Reich".  rewinn 06:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Enabling Act

message: Updated number of challenges and added citations as new information is now available.
Eulerskunk 00:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updated challanges 

message: The article on the controversy seemed pretty POV, so I added a couple of sources arguing on behalf of signing statements. I also added a fact tag in the paragraph about unitary executive theory; it seems pretty absurd and conspiratorial to suggest that the President claims to have unchecked power, and indeed, not a single source in the "interpretation" citation is non-partisan or in favor of unitary executive theory, whatever it is (I haven't examined the issue myself). Additionally, I'd like to see a quote from the source that verifies this statement:
"As of October 4, 2006, he had signed 134 signing statements challenging 810 federal laws."
I searched for "810" in the source, but nothing came up. Aristotle1990 23:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits and interpretation of source 

message: A recent report shows that Bush has issued 151 signing statements challenging 1,149 provisions of specific federal laws.  Badagnani 02:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update needed 

message: In the description of the McCain Amendment controversy, I changed "challenge" to "not be bound" because there is nothing notable in the President, or indeed in anybody, challenging a law. That's how our system is support to work! What is notable is the Bush Administration's claim that the President is not bound by a law passed by Congress and signed by the president, if the president thinks it is so (in his independent judgment, to paraphrase the WSJ editorial --- surely a bizarre source of law!) According to this theory, it is then up to the Congress to challenge the president, which would be a most noteworthy change to our constitutional order post-Marbury v. Madison.     rewinn (talk) 06:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Challenge" vs. "not be bound" 

message: Signing statements are exclusive to the United States of America. Until data about occurrences outside USA is produced, Signing Statements must at most redirect. Trying to invent an article implying that it is done anywhere else is POV-pushing. rewinn (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's only exclusive to the United States then the article doesn't need to be Signing statement (United States).  The introductory text should indicate that it's only a practice in the United States, if that's the case. ~PescoSo say•we all 21:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Exclusively American

message: The sources cited by this article are contradictory in the numbers of signing statements they claim for different presidents. Before my latest changes, the article was quoting numbers that didn't match the cited sources. It currently quotes numbers from Dahlia Lithwick's 30 Jan 2006 Slate article:
:"Until Ronald Reagan became President, only 75 statements had been issued. Reagan and his successors George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton have produced 247 signing statements among the three of them. By the end of 2004, George W. Bush had issued 108 signing statements containing 505 constitutional challenges."
But the 17 Sep 2007 Congressional Research Service report states:
:"President Reagan issued 250 signing statements, 86 of which (34%) contained provisions objecting to one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President George H. W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 228 signing statements, 107 of which (47%) raised objections. President Clinton’s conception of presidential power proved to be largely consonant with that of the preceding two administrations. In turn, President Clinton made aggressive use of the signing statement, issuing 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised constitutional or legal objections. President George W. Bush has continued this practice, issuing 152 signing statements, 118 of which (78%) contain some type of challenge or objection."
Now, none of those numbers add up to 247. The totals add to 858 and the "objecting" statement counts add to 263 (okay, at least that's close — but then it's misleading to refer to this as the number of signing statements). So where did the 247 come from? Cooper's paper? (Which Lithwick cites repeatedly — although she gets his middle initial wrong — and which I have not been able to read...) Kelley's paper? (Which she also cites — and which seems to have completely disappeared from the web...) Certainly not Van Bergen's article, which, while quoting the same 75 pre-Reagan figure, also says:
:"From Reagan's administration through Clinton's, the total number of signing statements ever issued, by all presidents, rose to a total 322. In striking contrast to his predecessors, President Bush issued at least 435 signing statements in his first term alone."
Now, the first number might be consonant with the 247 pre-W figure quoted by Lithwick, but the second (435) is wildly higher than anyone else's number (unless she's referring to individual objections, in which case the first number is way too low). Basically, these figures are a mess. - dcljr (talk) 05:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha! OK, I'm an idiot. Right after saving my comment above, I realized 247 did come from Van Bergen: 75 + 247 = 322. Whatever. I still say these numbers are fishy, for the other reasons I cite above. - dcljr (talk) 05:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest, if there is any doubt about the historical numbers, replace them with something less precise, e.g. "less than 100" or "around 300". Readers seeking precision can always go to the sources. It's quite possible that figuring out whether the "real" count in 247 or 249 or 299 might depend on an interpretation of just what is a signing statement. For most purposes, accuracy rather than precision is needed. rewinn (talk) 06:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually there's another part of the current version of the article that brings in the number 700 and then says Bill Clinton issued even more (but with a very weak citation). It seems the number 700 may be some kind of estimate of the number of components of the signing statements or the number of legislative items being redefined or challenged in the signing statement. However it clearly seems the article needs a breakdown of the signing statements that reflects what's in them. In other words, the section about "Applying a metric..." needs a lot of work. Shanen (talk) 21:31, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers don't add up 

message: The external links guidelines states "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links, or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.".  For that reason I intend to pare down the ELs in this article. Bonewah (talk) 20:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: This section is entirely unbalanced, consisting entirely of criticism, with only a couple of conclusory sentences from a WSJ op-ed on the other side.  There is substantial literature defending the use of signing statements, not to mention the fact that a substantial number of the Bush signing statements were rejections of plainly unconstitutional attempts by Congress to create legislative vetoes in violation of INS v. Chadha.  THF (talk) 04:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bush administration 

message: The link to source 2 in references is a dead link, as noted.  I believe this is the correct updated link: http://www.abanow.org/2006/07/blue-ribbon-task-force-finds-president-bushs-signing-statements-undermine-separation-of-powers/
I would edit it in but I don't know how.  Help?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.61.160.86 (talk) 22:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Although the description is "fair and balanced," as far as mentioning both a Republican and Democrat (GW Bush & Obama, respectively), it is irrelevant and presumptious to the description, which should give details/definitions, not arguable political stances. Furthermore, it makes for tit-for-tat editorializing, such that someone may come along and say that Trump has done more of such than any President in history, and then one would have to cite the President who did the least. In other words, the entire paragraph should be removed, IMnsHO. Skaizun (talk) 00:47, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Description should not include examples 

message: User Observer2345 on March 12 has made several edits, among which was removing this passage about the "non-signing statement":
The "non-signing statement" is a related method that some presidents have used to express concerns about certain provisions in a bill without vetoing it.  With the non-signing statement, presidents announce their reasons for declining to sign, while allowing the bill to become law unsigned. The U.S. Constitution allows such enactments by default: if the President does not sign the bill, it becomes law after ten days, excepting Sundays, "unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return..."U.S. Const. art. I, § 7
This was deleted with no trace left of this subject matter, and without any reason given for it. This was the user's only date of ever editing Wikipedia and the only article that the user touched as well. I believe this removal was unwarranted.
Although perhaps the non-signing statement is not as notable as the quoted paragraph makes it sound like, there is at least one proper source talking about it. And presidents have used it before, according to that source, so I do not think this is fringe to talk about in the article. A quick Google search shows that some other entities in the US (such as here, with then-California governor Jerry Brown) have used a procedure of making reservations about a measure but not blocking it, but also not endorsing it and instead choosing to simply promulgate it, essentially - and calling this a "non-signing statement". 104.175.78.152 (talk) 00:41, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restoring "non-signing statement" paragraph (with modification)