Obama, the Autopen and History

In his book “Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor,” Matt Latimer, member of former President George W. Bush’s speech-writing team, offers an entertaining account of his memories of the White House. In one of the most enjoyable passages, Latimer explains the surprise that he felt after discovering one of the best-guarded secrets of politicians for the first time: “the autopen.”

As Latimer tells it, the autopen is a machine in the shape of an arm that holds a pen at one end. Simply by pressing a button, the autopen reproduces a signature with surprising exactness. According to Latimer, the skill of a good assistant consists of correctly calculating the position of the paper so that the signature is affixed to the right place.

The autopen is used by assistants of congressmen, governors and presidents to sign for them in order to avoid wasting their boss’ precious time with mere bureaucratic matters: signing invitations, recommendations, letters responding to citizen petitions, etc.

However, President Obama, perhaps inspired by the historic nature of his presidency, decided this week to grant a much more momentous and unprecedented role to the autopen: the conversion of a bill into law. And it wasn’t the renewal of just any law, but the controversial Patriot Act, which allows the government to intercept communications of suspected terrorists without the cumbersome legal process that was necessary prior to September 11.

According to Section 7 of Article 1 of the Constitution, the signing of a bill is one of the most important attributes of the presidency since the president’s refusal to sign can veto any bill approved by Congress.

The history of the White House is filled with stories of White House aides who have had to fly to remote regions of the United States, or even abroad, in order for the president to sign an important law “in extremis.”

Last Thursday produced one of these situations. Hours before the Patriot Act was to expire, Obama found himself in France for the G8 summit. One of the presidential assistants found themselves prepared to rush off to Deauville. However, Congress was delayed longer than expected and when the bill had been approved, it was already too late. It would be impossible to deliver it to Obama in time.

And so, in accordance with a legal memorandum from 2005 created by the Bush administration, which established that “the President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill to sign it,” at 5:45 a.m. local time, Obama was awakened to give the order to press the button on the autopen.

And that was how one of the most curious chapters of the Obama presidency was written, and how the autopen emerged from obscurity to enter U.S. history.