| President | Challenge | Con | Rhet | Total |
| Reagan | 51 | 34 | 106 | 140 |
| BushI | 246 | 118 | 105 | 223 |
| Clinton | 55 | 27 | 141 | 168 |
| Bush II | 713 | 86 | 23 | 109 |
| Obama | 78 | 10 | 21 | 37 |
Obama has issued very few signing statements in his first term in office. From 2009-2012, Obama issued just 37 total signing statements, compared with 100+ from each of his predecessors. Interesting, the President who comes closest to Obama in total number of signing statements is his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, who has been the most reviled where signing statements are concerned.
In Obama's final year of his presidency, he issued seven signing statements, and none that challenged any provision of law. But before we break out the cigars, it is important to note that Obama issued the third most challenges, coming in behind George 43 and his father, George 41. So he may have not issued many signing statements, but he gets his money worth when he does.
It is hard to know whether these numbers are indeed completely accurate. In one respect, the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents have now been adding keywords to their entries, so signing statements now contain the label "bill signings". In the other respect, according to a January 2010 NY Times report by Charlie Savage, the administration claimed it would not use the signing statement to voice disagreements with law where disagreements have already been made, and may instead use the OLC to voice new disagreements--and OLC opinions are not always published. So we are left wondering what these numbers really mean.
You would hope this would be an issue the Congress would take more seriously, and not just when it comes to partisan advantage. Despite what some scholars think about congressional oversight of the signing statement, the fact of the matter is there is little to no evidence that Congress has a handle on how, why, and when the president uses the signing statement, burglar and fire alarms notwithstanding.
Thus I have taken advantage of the administration's "We the People" project to ask the administration to make the signing statement transparent, and allow a tracking mechanism similar to the executive order. You can find the petition at: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/publish-each-and-every-refusal-enforce-laws-president-signs-his-bill-signing-statements/wdmSnGlg?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Please take the time to sign my petition if you think this is an issue that warrants attention.
