Signing statements: Bush vs Obama

[Ichingcarpenter]

How many signing statements has President Obama issued?

From his inauguration through January 2, 2013, President Obama has issued 21 signing statements affecting 85 specified provisions and making six mentions of unspecified provisions of law in 20 Congressional enactments. Obama has issued eight rhetorical signing statements, 12 constitutional signing statements, and one statement remarking on an "inadvertent technical drafting error" in the affected bill.




How many signing statements did George W. Bush issue?

Summary Answer

George W. Bush issued 161 signing statements affecting over 1,100 provisions of law in 160 Congressional enactments.

Counting Methods

Two types of "metrics" surfaced in writings about signing statements during the Bush administration. One approach is to count the signing statement documents that a president issues when signing Congressional enactments. The second approach is to count the provisions of law challenged by those documents.

The recent trend (and better practice) is to report both numbers.

Number of Signing Statement Documents

If all signing statements were made available to the GPO's Weekly Compilation, George W. Bush issued 161 signing statement documents during his term. For a list of the signing statements, click here. Here is my count by year of issuance:

2001
24

2002
34

2003
28
two signing statements issued for P.L. 108-7
2004
25
two signing statements issued for P.L. 108-375
2005
14
2006
23
2007
8
2008
5


161
Total


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For your consideration and contemplation.

[former9thward]

1. Interesting but irrelevant to the law.

If a president signs a law then the law goes into effect. 100% of it. It matters not whether there was a signing statement. Signing statements have never been used in court to attack a law.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I think if you go to the link

you can find a more detailed explanation than your statement which I find inconsistent to the history.