President assumes arbitrary power.

The U.S. Constitution, that dusty old document many have heard of but don't know much about, creates three separate branches of government and establishes the powers each shall have. The legislative branch, the most important, is granted the sole power to make laws. The judicial branch is granted the least amount of power. And the executive branch is designed to be led by a president who is ordered to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." There is no law-making power given to the judges or to the president.

The Constitution also requires the president to swear an oath at his inauguration. In it, he solemnly pledges to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Not just some parts of it; all of it. One power given the president allows him to veto a bill passed by Congress if he sees a problem with it. But his veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress. So the president has a role in the legislative process, but only a very limited one. He can't make law, but he can try to block the making of bad law. Of particular interest today is the stunning realization that, in the more than five years President Bush has held office, he has never vetoed a single bill.

We bring this up because, instead of vetoing what he doesn't like, President Bush has regularly relied on a completely unconstitutional tactic. While approving a steady stream of measures passed by both houses of Congress, he has been adding carefully written "signing statements." In case after case, what he has done is place his interpretation on the newly created law, effectively rewriting it to suit his pleasure. As Miami (Ohio) University political science professor Christopher Kelley has stated: "He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises--and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened."

In a recent expose of this dramatic expansion of executive power, Boston Globe reporter Charles Savage wrote that Mr. Bush has added such signing statements to "more than one of every 10 bills he has signed." By doing so, he instructs the massive bureaucracy he leads not to follow congressional intent, but to follow his frequently contrary view of what the law seeks to accomplish.

Charles Savage pointed to numerous instances of this circumvention of the Constitution's certain limitations on executive power. Mr. Bush turned to signing statements when he didn't like congressional restrictions on such matters as the use of intelligence unlawfully gathered, requirements that the Justice Department obey new regulations regarding wiretapping, new rules dealing with the treatment of military prisoners in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and "whistle-blower" protections for federal employees. In most cases, he cited his "commander in chief" designation as the source of the power to nullify or emasculate congressional action. Yet, the Constitution's naming of a president as "commander in chief" was never intended to be more than an assignment of responsibility, never a grant of power.

The practice of issuing these signing statements wasn't dreamed up by President Bush and his team. The procedure was rarely employed until the 1980s and then simply in order for a president to assert that a portion of a particular bill would likely be found unconstitutional. But signing statements became more common when Attorney General Edwin Meese suggested the practice to President Ronald Reagan as a way to increase executive power. While occasionally relying on the tactic, Mr. Reagan also employed his veto power, as did successors George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Charles Savage reported that the first President Bush issued 232 signing statements and Bill Clinton wrote 140. But the current President Bush has already issued 750 of these executive decrees. Because of the way the government is currently being managed, each effectively takes on the force of law when it appears in the Federal Register.

Obviously, the office of president is becoming more powerful almost daily. There seems to be little or no restraint holding back the nation's chief executive. Presidents have for years taken the nation to war even though the Constitution clearly grants such life-and-death power solely to Congress. If a president feels the need to assert his will, he simply issues an executive order, has it published in the Federal Register and, bingo, he gets his way. Now with signing statements, when a president doesn't like what Congress dictates, he simply writes his version of the law and ignores what Congress has enacted.

Illicit presidential power must be abolished. But the Congress that should put a stop to this abuse sits idly by except for a few members who occasionally grouse about increasingly imperial White House power. New York University law professor David Golove has lamented that allowing a president to act as Mr. Bush does, and having a Congress that is unwilling to challenge such action, will lead to a day when the Constitution will simply "disappear." How about it Congress? Do you collectively have the guts to put a stop to this dangerous and destructive practice?