Obama's power grab pushing the country away from what Founding Fathers established for democracy

 Far more than any president in my lifetime, Barack Obama has used the executive order to bypass or contravene the legislative authority of Congress.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution states: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be seated in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”

Section 8 of that same article gives to the Congress the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the forgoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” But the Constitution grants to the president no legislative powers whatever.

Article II, Section Three, merely requires that “he shall take Care that the laws be fully executed …..” Over the centuries the nation has gradually come to accept the growing practice of judicial legislation until, today, the Bench is virtually a second legislative branch of government. In recent decades, presidents have begun to do the same thing through executive orders.

Clearly the executive order is a mechanism necessary to enable the president to manage the executive branch and to properly regulate the execution of laws passed by Congress. But this president has carried that process to the point where he is creating new legislation by fiat, sometimes in contradiction to decisions previously taken by Congress.

In so doing, he is usurping the legislative authority of the Congress in the following ways:

• Mr. Obama’s establishment of a herd of so-called “czars” unapproved by Congress, who rival and sometimes exceed Cabinet members in their powers within the Executive Branch, is a structural example.

• He attempts to use the Environmental Protection Agency to impose via regulation the cap and trade legislation which was rejected by Congress.

• He imposes a variety of back door gun controls, in violation of the Second Amendment and of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding that amendment.

• He violated law and custom by denying secured bond investors their rights when General Motors collapsed so that he could give their legal portion to his union political allies.

• In Obamacare, he claims authority under the Commerce Clause to force Americans to buy healthcare when they otherwise would not.

• He even toyed with the invention of authority under the Fourteenth Amendment to raise the debt ceiling of the United States without prior Congressional authorization.

• At the same time, he claims the authority to choose which legislation he will enforce and which he will not – as in the case of immigration legislation. These are but a few examples of the Obama Administration’s consistent trend toward expansion of the authority of the executive at the expense of the constitutionally-granted powers of the Congress.

If this trend continues it is only a matter of time before the Congress becomes ever less relevant to governance and the president becomes predominant. That way, eventually, lies dictatorship. This is an issue which touches directly on the checks and balances conceived and put in place by the Founders and which have helped to preserve our basic freedoms for over 200 years.

If this trend continues it is only a matter of time before the Congress becomes ever less relevant to governance and the president becomes predominant. That way, eventually, lies dictatorship. This is an issue which touches directly on the checks and balances conceived and put in place by the Founders and which have helped to preserve our basic freedoms for over 200 years.

It is not a political issue. It is an issue of the Constitutional rivalry intended by the Founders to exist and to help define the relationship between the Executive and Legislative branches of government. It is an issue which directly addresses the authority of Congress no matter which party holds the White House.

As such, I would hope that some Democrats, as well as the Republicans in both Houses, would see the need to draft and support a bill to re-establish the Constitutional balance.

Again, the object of such a bill could not be to eliminate the executive order altogether or to reduce the authority of the presidency beyond the point where he or she can direct the affairs of governance.

Rather it would limit the authority of any president to issue executive orders or otherwise take steps to authorize measures not previously approved by both houses of Congress, to contradict legislation approved in both houses of Congress, or to refuse to implement and enforce legislation passed by Congress.

Undoubtedly those who support the concept of an imperial presidency (at least as long as they are in power) would challenge this legislation before the Supreme Court. That is as it should be.

Over the decades a number of legislative-executive issues have arisen and been resolved. To cite only two examples:

• There was a time when presidents claimed the authority to refuse to spend some of the money appropriated by Congress and included within the budget. This was called “impoundment.” When President Nixon advanced such claims and refused to disburse some $12 billion of Congressionally-legislated funding, the Congress rejected the concept of impoundment in the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act, which was passed over the President’s veto.

• During the Reagan Administration, when he controlled the Senate and the Democrats controlled the House, the House insisted that the administration had to obey resolutions passed only by one house of Congress just as if they were laws passed by both Houses. The administration acquiesced, but appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided in favor of the Administration.

The constitutional balance was restored in both cases. Now that balance is again in need of restoration.

It is time for Congress to act to require that its constitutional authorities be respected and to bring an out-of-control administration to heel.

It is time for Congress to act to require that its constitutional authorities be respected and to bring an out-of-control administration to heel.

Stanley Escudero
Sept. 22, 2011
 

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