The Highs and Lows of Presidential Signing Ceremonies

Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill’s Big Beautiful July 4 Signing Ceremony was certainly a memorable event, with key members of Congress and the cabinet in attendance as well as a flyover by fighter and bomber jets. For the president, combining the signing of the bill with Independence Day festivities was meant to telegraph to voters the importance of his most significant legislative achievement to date.

But long before Trump, presidents have seen political opportunities in White House signing ceremonies. At the same time, although such ceremonies can provide great optics, history also shows that they are not without risks.

Workman-Like Affairs

For much of the 19th century, many signing ceremonies took place at the U.S. Capitol—not the White House—and were more workman-like affairs. When both the presidency and Congress used to end at the same time, noon on March 4, outgoing presidents would spend the night of March 3 at the Capitol to be ready to sign bills into law as they passed. In the 1850s, Congress built what is known as the President’s Room as a place for presidents to do business at the Capitol, including signing pieces of legislation. Both Ulysses S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur used the room for this purpose. When the 1933 ratification of the 20th Amendment separated the beginnings of presidential and congressional terms, the President’s Room ceased being a place for last-minute bill signings. Coming at the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, this move also helped signal a shift to Roosevelt’s more activist presidency.

But even before the 20th Amendment, presidents were not completely unaware of the symbolic power of these events. For instance, presidents have long recognized the importance of the pens used to sign important pieces of legislation. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt sent Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge a pen used to sign the bill creating the modern Food and Drug Administration, writing to him, “You were the man who first called my attention to the abuses in the packing houses. You were the legislator who drafted the bill which in its substance now appears in the amendment to the agricultural bill.”