The best article I've seen on the precise threats represented by these signing statements is from the always-entertaining Dahlia Lithwick at slate.com: http://www.slate.com/id/2134919/
Creighton J. Miller, Jr.
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Bounds Law Library
University of Alabama School of Law
Tuscaloosa, AL
(205)348-2373
cmiller@law.ua.edu
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http://www.library.law.ua.edu/
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From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu on behalf of Laura Orr
Sent: Wed 5/10/2006 10:47 AM
To: Law-Lib
Subject: Teaching Legislative History - and signing statements - a Question of Grave Importance
Greetings to all law librarian teachers of legislative history - and at the risk of exposing myself publicly to be an idiot, an incompetent, and a fake ...
How are you now incorporating the presence and use of signing statements into your lessons on legislative history? We law librarians are not, at least not most of us, legal scholars, but we are on the front line when it comes to teaching law students legislative history and other legal research skills. The debate raging on the news and the web over signing statements has me confused, although it may be (and may be highly likely) that I am misunderstanding it.
When I taught oodles and oodles of legislative history classes back in my academic law library years, I would always include a discussion of signing statements (making it clear that they were not strictly speaking legislative history). Way back then (the 1990's :-), we understood that signing statements could, under some circumstances, be useful in understanding legislative and executive intent, but THEY ARE NOT LAW and have never been any more than statements on the Senate or House floor and printed in the Congressional Record are (and we know about *those*).
A President could include in a signing statement a declaration that all law librarians are henceforth enemies of the state and as such lack any protections under the constitution, but THAT WOULDN'T MAKE IT LAW. Eyebrows might be raised, the signing statement might be cited to (though likely more in the context of insanity, or simply inanity, rather than legislative/executive intent), but it DOESN'T MAKE IT LAW. Or does it in this new decade, the Zeros (or is it really 1937)? Have Presidential Signing Statements been elevated to the status of Executive Orders and other such executive/administrative laws? Is that what this debate is about and have I just not been reading the right articles or listening to the right pundits? Was there a Signing Statement (or perhaps an Executive Order) declaring that Signing Statements now have the force of law?
Am I missing something else or have I been missing it all along? No, I'm not missing the fact that, among other things, 750+ signing statements contrary to duly and properly enacted law and legislative intent really IS newsworthy, but that still doesn't make them law (at least not statutory law), which seems to be why a lot of people (especially non-lawyers, journalists?) are getting their knickers in a twist. Should mine be as well? They already are for other reasons that shall remain private (and speaking of privacy ... !), but not over this.
Has my brain atrophied after leaving the ivory tower (yes, you may say yes :-)? I'm not really in never-never-land out here in Oregon, am I? Since when are Signing Statements law? Should I be teaching that they are?
Yours forever in ignorant and Pollyanna bliss.
Laura
Laura J. Orr
Law Librarian
Washington County Law Library
111 NE Lincoln Street
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Phone: 503-846-8870
Fax: 503-846-3515
Email: laura_orr@co.washington.or.us <mailto:laura_orr@co.washington.or.us>
Blog: http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/ <http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/>
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