More secrecy

President Obama's campaign rhetoric of greater transparency has taken a hit with his agreement to participate in closed door talks with congressional leader on health care reform legislation instead of, as he pledged, broadcasting them on C-SPAN.

Now, he has found another way to avoid unwanted publicity and rancor over the use of signing statements. Publicly, he has abandoned them. But the new White House policy will retreat even further into secrecy to accomplish the same objective.

Presidents have used signing statements to challenge provisions of bills they consider to be unconstitutional limits on their power and do not feel obligated to enforce.

They have been used by presidents since the 19th century. They have grown more common in the past two or three decades, but they did not attract a great deal of public attention until the last administration. President Bush's use of signing statements to question 1,200 sections of various bills was more than all of his predecessors combined.

As a candidate, President Obama called President Bush's use of the statements abusive. Although he did not promise to reject them entirely when he was a candidate, President Obama said he would use them to "nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law." He has used them several times during his first year in office.

However, President Obama has not issued public signing statements in recent months, although he continues to challenge provisions of bills, the New York Times reports. Prior notice might be the mantra of the new policy. The White House considers Congress, and the nation, on notice that it will disregard sections of bills to which it has raised constitutional objections while the legislation was pending. That was the rationale in signing a $447 billion spending bill for 2010, even though it had several sections the White House had claimed were unconstitutional.

The president's actions will be based on advice from the Office of Legal Counsel, whose opinions are often secret.

Lashing out at the policy, Rep. Barney Frank said, "Anyone who makes the argument that 'once we have told you we have constitutional concerns and then you pass it anyway, that justifies us in ignoring it' — that is a constitutional violation."

President Obama's backpedaling will make it more difficult to know what laws he will fully enforce and lessen accountability.