Above the Law

A sacred principles of our democracy is that no one is above the law, but Bush has a different view. He has issued hundreds of “signing statements” indicating what laws he will obey and what laws he can ignore. There is nothing in the Constitution that grants this privilege to a president.

Bush and his enablers in Congress and the Justice Department have made it clear that they think they are above the law. This expansive view of presidential power is an attack on the basic foundation of our democratic system of government, and it's an attack on each and every one of us who believes in the Constitution.

Senator Carl Levin has seen the effect of these so-called “signing statements” firsthand. Earlier this year, he helped write the National Defense Authorization Act and got it passed. Among the provisions, of this important piece of legislation is a stipulation, which forbids the President from building permanent military bases in Iraq. It also establishes an independent commission to investigate the shameful contracting abuses that have occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan on Bush’s watch.

These are the kind of common sense measures that Democrats have been working on in the Senate. They were passed by Congress with strong, bipartisan support. However, in Bush’s era of hyper partisanship, that was not enough. Bush signed the bill into law, but declared that he could ignore the provisions he didn’t like.

These signing statements are just one of the damaging elements of Bush legacy that Congress will have to deal with long after his presidency is over. From Iraq to our sputtering economy to making affordable health care available to all Americans to repairing our standing in the world community, Congress and the next president have their work cut out for them to reverse the course of the last 7 years and move our country forward.

The next President of the United States must faithfully execute all the laws of this country and not just the ones he or she happen to agree with.