Challenging Law: Presidential Signing Statements and the Maintenance of Executive Power

Abstract

With increasing frequency, presidents have used the constitutional challenges in presidential signing statements to carve out pieces of legislation that they do not like. Few scholars have analyzed signing statements on the unit of analysis where constitutional challenges are operating – sections of legislation. What determines whether a section of law receives a challenge from the president? Using an original dataset coded from the first four divisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 and the original text of signing statements, I show that the president is likely to issue constitutional challenges to sections of legislation in order to protect issue areas of traditional presidential influence (foreign policy and defense) and to combat various forms of congressional oversight. In addition, I find evidence to suggest that the president is less likely to challenge sections of legislation that expand the power of bureaucratic agencies compared to those sections that do not. These findings have several important implications for the “two presidencies thesis,” theories of bureaucratic control, and the state of inter-branch affairs at the end of the Bush presidency.