Bill pushes back against Obama’s ‘imperial presidency’
Elizabeth Harrington
The Washington Free Beacon
3/12/2014
The House of Representatives passed the “Enforce the Law Act” Wednesday, a bill designed to push back against the numerous unilateral moves the Obama administration has used to circumvent the law.
Five Democrats joined Republicans in passing the bill by a 233 to 181 vote.
H.R. 4138, sponsored by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.), would authorize the House or Senate to sue the executive branch for not enforcing laws and provide an expedited process through federal district courts. The bill is one of several the House GOP is pushing to combat the “imperial presidency.”
Republicans say the legislation is necessary in light of the numerous administrative actions taken by President Barack Obama to change and selectively enforce laws, including immigration, marriage, welfare rules, and his signature legislative achievement, Obamacare…
…“It is simply another attempt by the majority to prevent the President of the United States to implement duly enacted legislative initiatives that they [the Republicans] oppose,” Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) said.
The administration’s unilateral changes are simply the “reality of implementing sometimes complex laws,” Conyers said, referring to Obamacare.
Jonathan Turley disagrees. He testified at a House hearing last month that America is at a “constitutional tipping point.”…
Read the complete article at The Washington Free Beacon.
Related: Congressman Gowdy’s YouTube channel has video segments of his speech on behalf of the bill.
Also, GOP Congressman: Obama Veto Threats Inconsistent With His Oath to Execute the Law
Calling President Barack Obama’s veto threats “outrageous,” Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said the administration’s executive actions are geared to winning elections and mock the rule of law.
“This administration suspends and delays laws with no constitutional objections,” DeSantis told TheBlaze. “Just today we learned of a secret delay to the individual mandate. This is madness. You can not have rule of law when people don’t know what the law is.”…
Update: Rep. Gowdy’s entire speech is here.
Obama threatens vetoes of bills requiring him to follow the law (video)
President Obama is threatening to veto a law that would allow Congress to sue him in federal courts for arbitrarily changing or refusing to enforce federal laws because it “violates the separation of powers” by encroaching on his presidential authority…
It’s come to this: Obama threatens to veto Republican bills that … require him to follow the law
…You could, in fact, argue that this is all part of the checks-and-balances process: As different branches compete for power, they naturally seek to vindicate their supremacy in court. What’s novel about O is that, transparently, he’s refused to enforce parts of a major law (a law that’ll define his presidential legacy, by the way) not because of any constitutional problem but because they’re inconvenient to him politically. He needs to suspend the employer mandate for a few years, not because some unforeseen complication in enforcing it has arisen but because his party’s royally screwed at the polls as this boondoggle pisses off more and more voters and he’s frantic to minimize the damage. If he can define “faithful execution of the laws” to encompass an excuse as weak as that, then Jonathan Turley’s even more right than we thought. But, having made the leap to nonenforcement for reasons of pure political expedience, it’s no surprise that he’d now threaten a court battle over his constitutional powers. Presidents always do.
Still, good optics by the GOP to squeeze this threat out of him…
Read the whole thing.
