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CHICAGO, June 5, 2006 -- The American Bar Association today announced creation of a Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine to examine constitutional and legal issues raised by presidents of the United States attaching legal interpretations to federal legislation they sign.
“The task force will study thoroughly the implications of presidential signing statements for the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and interpretation of laws,” said ABA President Michael S. Greco in announcing the task force. “The task force will prepare a report with policy recommendations to the ABA House of Delegates when it meets in August in Hawaii.”
The task force will examine the changing role of presidential signing statements, in which U.S. presidents articulate their views of provisions in newly enacted laws, attaching statements to the new legislation before forwarding it to the Federal Register. The task force will also consider whether such statements conflict with express statutory language or congressional intent.
“The issue to be addressed by this distinguished task force is of great consequence to our constitutional system of government and its delicate system of checks and balances and separation of powers. The task force will provide an independent, non partisan and scholarly analysis of the utility of presidential signing statements and how they comport with the Constitution and enacted law,” Greco said.
Greco named Neal R. Sonnett, a Miami lawyer, to chair the 10-member task force. Sonnett is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Division for the Southern District of Florida. He is past chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, which he represents in the ABA House of Delegates; incoming vice-chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities; chair of the ABA Task Force on Domestic Surveillance and the ABA Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants; and president-elect of the American Judicature Society.
Members include:
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William S. Sessions, now in private practice in Washington, D.C., a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, chief U.S. district court judge for the Western District of Texas, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, and chief of the Government Operations Section of the U.S. Department of Justice;
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Patricia M. Wald, most recently a member of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and trial and appellate judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She was an assistant attorney general for legislative affairs in the Carter Administration;
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Former Rep. Mickey Edwards, a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership, who served in the House Republican Leadership as a member of Congress from 1977-1992, was a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, former national chair of the American Conservative Union, and director of policy advisory task forces for the Reagan presidential campaign;
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Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with The Lichfield Group, who was associate deputy attorney general and assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy of the Department of Justice under President Reagan. He also served as general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, and a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation;
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Dean and professor Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School, one of the country's leading experts on international human rights and national security law. A former assistant secretary of state, Koh advised former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright on U.S. policy on democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and also served as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice;
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Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org), named in honor of the visionary lawyer who spearheaded the litigation in Brown v. Board of Education, opened in September 2005, and focuses on a variety of issues relating to race and justice, and will sponsor research, hold conferences, and provide policy analysis;
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Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg of George Washington University Law School, a former associate independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation and deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the U. S. Department of Justice. He is the incoming chair elect of the ABA Criminal Justice Section and serves in the association’s House of Delegates;
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Professor Kathleen M. Sullivan of Stanford Law School, and former dean of the school for five years. She heads Stanford's Constitutional Law Center, has taught at Harvard and University of Southern California law schools, and is a visiting scholar at the National Constitution Center. A nationally known constitutional law expert, she is co-author of a leading casebook in constitutional law;
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Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., formerly counsel and legislative director to Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-Mass.) and aide to Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.). He is a member of the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association, chairs the ABA Commission on the Renaissance of Idealism in the Legal Profession, and is a past chair of the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities;
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Tom Susman, a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, has served as general counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and several of its subcommittees, and in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the ABA House of Delegates, past chair of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and has served on the ABA Board of Governors;
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Alan Rothstein will serve as advisor to the task force. He is general counsel to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and coordinates the extensive law reform and public policy work of that 22,000-member association. He also serves in the New York State Bar Association House of Delegates.
With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.
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