[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Personally, I heard this story today and was horrified, and it's not mentioned on the site, so I sent them an email. I'm unsure if it counts as a campaign promise though.

They responded to me personally to let me know they had written this up on the site, and thanked me for the email. And what a writeup it is!

For those that are interested in the issue of signing statements, I highly recommend you read the whole thing. Here's a bit of the promises he made:

"I will issue signing statements to address constitutional concerns only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my constitutional responsibilities," the memo reads, adding later, “"I will strive to avoid the conclusion that any part of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional. In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded."

It’s important to note that Obama makes clear in both his campaign assertion and his official memo that he does not consider signing statements to be problematic in and of themselves. Rather, he argues, their use should be limited in scope and reach, clearly stating that President Bush went overboard.

Again, you should read the whole thing, but here's the article's conclusion:

Unlike Bush, Obama has not picked his battles on major issues such as the use of torture. Rather, he’s quibbled over the seating requirements for a commission that virtually no one's ever heard of (and stipulated to an advisory role rather than a binding role for Congress). He's laid down limits on what his subordinates will tell a panel that lacks any binding legislative power. And he's refused to let Congress dictate specific negotiating positions in foreign policy.

Indeed, Obama's statements were "conventional assertions of executive autonomy," rather than his own policy agenda, said John Woolley, a University of California-Santa Barbara political scientist who has studied presidential powers.

Obama's actions are "routine as far as how the signing statement had been used prior to the Bush II administration," added Christopher Kelley, a political scientist at Miami University of Ohio and a specialist in signing statements. "From this standpoint I have seen nothing that Obama has done that is out of the main, nor in violation of his promise."

Woolley agrees. "In terms of the things he objects to about legislation, Obama's statements are not really all that different from those of his predecessors" other than Bush. ... These statements are all precise examples of 'using signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives' -- exactly as he promised."

So for now, we find evidence on both sides. There have been the instances where Obama does seem to be exercising more presidential power than Congress would like and, in at least a couple of cases, crossing the line from his promise. But these are issues of power, over which the legislative and executive branch have long tussled. So for now, we're going to rate this one Compromise. But we'll be watching future signing statements to see if we should move the Obameter one way or the other.