There's an interesting situation developing in US over the use of signing statements by the President when signing bills into law. The US Constitution allows the President to either sign a bill into law, veto it in its entirety, or ignore it (which means it either it becomes law anyway, or is a pocket veto if Congress is not in session). The signing statement is a statement about how the President intends to enforce or implement the law.
The controversy is that George Bush is using some of these statements to indicate that he won't enforce particular provisions, generally because he thinks that they encroach on the executive powers of the President.
So, Senator Specter, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is planning to introduce a bill that will give members of Congress the standing to sue the President over these signing statements to allow them to be judicially reviewed by the federal courts. His concern, shared by the American Bar Association, is that the President is effectively using a line-item veto, which the Supreme Court has previously ruled unconstitutional.
I have mixed feelings about this.
First of all, these signing statements bear no legal weight at all. They are not executive orders that tell a federal agency how to operate - they are simply a statement by the President of how he interprets the new law. In general, I would prefer that these are left well alone by Congress and the Courts. Instead legal action can be taken if an actual violation of the new law occurs. At that point the Courts have an absolute power to act.
However, it becomes more complicated. The Courts have regularly thrown out lawsuits because the plaintif has no standing to sue. This is because the Courts do not issue advisory opinions (i.e. they do not rule on hypotheticals), and you can only sue if there is some harm to you. Consequently, if the President decides not to enforce a section of a law, then it may be difficult to find a party with standing.
So I'm unsure about this. But as I am generally in favour of efforts to limit executive power, I hope it is seriously considered by Congress.
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Over the weekend, Tim and I were discussing the viability of replacing the president/cabinet with a fully executive council. The model would be say 9 people elected for a one-time 9 year term, and hence there would be one position up for grabs each year. It would provide a certain continuity to the leadership, preventing the kinds of radical policy shifts which have traditionally marked the change between a democrat and republican government. It would also mean that once in power, the only concern of the council would be running the country. We mostly wondered about the viability of staging the elections, but I can imagine needing some pretty careful thought for the process of moderating internal conflicts in the council.