Judicial Ruling in the United States
Signing Statements Used to Create a Legal History
Introduction to Judicial Ruling
The administration of President Ronald Reagan was the first to conceive of signing statements as guides for judicial rulings. Under Reagan a group of conservative lawyers, headed by Attorney General Edwin Meese, saw signing statements both as a way to assert executive power and to influence the courts.
This strategy originated in 1984 when Congress passed the Competition in Contracting Act. In signing the act, President Reagan issued a statement ordering executive agencies to ignore one of its provisions. A company that would have won a government contract if the provision had been enforced sued the federal government. In March 1985 a federal district court judge found in favor of the company and ruled that the administration was required to obey all of the law’s provisions.
Attorney General Meese disputed the district court’s finding and appealed the decision. An appeals court upheld the district court, ruling that the administration was unconstitutionally asserting an authority similar to a line-item veto (selective vetoing). Meese backed down following the appeals court ruling and after the House Judiciary Committee voted to cut off funding for Meese’s office until he obeyed the court’s order.
Later that year, however, two Justice Department attorneys, Steven Calabresi and John Harrison, wrote a memo to Meese arguing that the Reagan administration should begin issuing signing statements more frequently. They maintained that in cases where the judiciary ruled on ambiguously worded laws, the existence of a presidential signing statement might serve as a guide for judges, much like judges sometimes consult the Congressional Record as a guide to the intentions of Congress in crafting a law.
The acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under Reagan endorsed the proposal. The OLC’s purpose is to advise the president on legal and constitutional issues. The OLC head issued a memo in October 1985 that said signing statements were “presently underutilized and could become far more important as a tool of Presidential management of the agencies, a device for preserving issues of importance in the ongoing struggle for power with Congress, and an aid to statutory interpretation for the courts.” Meese also secured the cooperation of a publishing company so that presidential signing statements would be readily available to the courts.
Another group within the Justice Department, which included future Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., also studied the proposal to expand the use of signing statements. In February 1986 Alito wrote a memo that said frequent signing statements were a way to “increase the power of the executive to shape the law.”
The Justice Department’s support for signing statements led President Reagan to challenge 95 provisions of laws he had signed by the end of his second term. This was the largest number of challenges an American president had ever issued. The impact of the statements, however, was largely unknown because they merely expressed presidential dissatisfaction rather than outlining a course of action.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Judicial Ruling in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia