“Bush’s
Use Of Pardons Isn’t
Very Compassionate"
By Gene C. Gerard
30 December, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The White House recently announced
that President Bush issued pardons to 16 individuals. Their offenses
included bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government, possession
of marijuana and cocaine, and mail fraud. During his first term, Mr.
Bush issued a mere 31 pardons and commutations. To date he’s issued
113 pardons and three commutations. That’s less than any two-term
president in the modern era. In fact, you have to go back to George
Washington to find a president who served two-terms and made fewer acts
of clemency.
The president’s power to grant pardons was clearly enshrined in
the United States Constitution, Article II, Section 2: “The President…shall
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United
States, except in cases of impeachment.” Although the Framers
of the Constitution debated clemency, it was not viewed as a controversial
idea. There was some debate over making presidential pardons subject
to the consent of the Senate, though this was quickly rejected.
As the Founding Fathers were hammering out the details of the Constitution
in Philadelphia, they seem to have essentially agreed that the privilege
to exercise mercy, on which the power to issue pardons was founded,
could be most easily granted by a single person, rather than a legislative
body or even judges. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Number 74, wrote
“… one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the
mercy of the government than a body of men.”
Over the years, presidents have issued pardons to and commuted the sentences
of a motley band of crooks, criminals, and scoundrels. President George
Washington gave amnesty to the instigators of the Whiskey Rebellion,
while President Johnson did the same for Confederate rebels. President
Harding pardoned fiery Socialist labor leader and convicted felon Eugene
V. Debs. President Nixon issued a commutation to organized crime figure
Jimmy Hoffa, only to be pardoned himself by President Ford following
the Watergate fiasco.
President Carter gave amnesty to the Vietnam War draft resisters, and
commuted the sentence of bank robber Patty Hearst. President Reagan
issued a pardon to George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees for illegal
campaign contributions he made in the 1960s. President George Bush,
Sr. pardoned Iran Contra scandal figure Caspar Weinberger. President
Clinton infamously pardoned fugitive financier Mark Rich, whose wife
had been a major contributor to the Democratic National Committee.
Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the most pardons and commutations of any
president. Over the course of his four terms, he issued 3,687. By contrast,
George Washington issued the least, only 16. Two presidents in American
history, William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, chose not to use
their power to pardon.
President Bush is now notable for issuing so few pardons and commutations.
In comparison to his current record of 116, Mr. Clinton issued 456 during
his two terms. Mr. Reagan issued 406. Mr. Eisenhower issued 1,157, while
Mr. Truman issued 2,044 acts of clemency.
During his time as Governor of Texas, Mr. Bush issued fewer pardons
than any other Governor in Texas since the 1940s. He issued only 16,
compared to 70 for Ann Richards, his immediate predecessor. When questioned
about his low number of pardons in an interview with the Star-Telegram
newspaper, then Governor Bush suggested that it had less to do with
any particular political philosophy and more to do with his experience
with one pardon he issued. He pardoned an individual in 1995 for a marijuana
conviction, and a few months later the individual was arrested for cocaine
possession.
Today, it’s hard to think of President Bush apart from his political
philosophy of “Compassionate Conservatism.” After all, he
went out of his way to promote the concept. Given that the Founding
Fathers gave the presidency the power to pardon as a means of demonstrating
the government’s mercy, you would think that President Bush would
make good use of it. While it’s difficult to think of compassion
in numerical terms, issuing a paltry 116 pardons and commutations doesn’t
seem very compassionate.
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