WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter yesterday renewed his vow to hold an oversight hearing on the Bush administration's use of signing statements, saying he ``totally opposed" the president's practice of pronouncing himself exempt from obeying statutes even as he signs them into law.
``I think there is a very strong sense in the Congress in opposition to signing statements," Specter told reporters yesterday. ``We're going to go into the background and get some specifics from the administration on why they think they're appropriate, and consider what we can do. . . . We want to get a fuller statement from the president about what he thinks his authority is here."
Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on May 2 that he planned to hold a hearing in June. At the time, he denounced Bush's use of signing statements as ``a very blatant encroachment" on Congress's constitutional power to write the law. But with June half over, Specter has yet to schedule the hearing.
Senate aides said the delay is due in part to the Judiciary Committee's busy schedule, which has included hearings on judicial nominations, immigration, voting rights, the administration's domestic spying programs, and proposed constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and give Congress the power to outlaw flag burning.
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