Jason Howerton
The Blaze
1/29/2014
Attorney General Eric Holder was unable to explain to Congress why President Barack Obama was within his constitutional limits when he issued an executive order to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate. The nation’s top law enforcement officer said he hasn’t looked at the analysis in “some time” and thus was unsure of where along the constitutional spectrum the order is permitted…
…After Lee was done questioning Holder, he proceeded to lecture the attorney general on the importance of ensuring no one person in government is allowed to accumulate too much power.
“This is very, very important,” he said. “It could be very helpful for you to release legal analysis produced by the office of legal counsel or whoever is advising the president on these issues. It’s imperative within our constitutional system that we not allow too much authority to be accumulated in one person.”
“It’s one of the reasons why we have a Constitution, is to protect us against the excessive accumulation of power.”
In response, Holder argued that Obama would never abuse his executive authority and act outside of the Constitution. He also claimed that President Obama has utilized executive orders less than his predecessors.
“General Holder, I respectfully, but forcefully, disagree with the assertion — if this is what you’re saying — that because the number of executive orders issued by this president might be comparable to the number of executive orders issue by previous presidents, that that means he hasn’t made more use of it than other presidents have.”
Lee said looking at the “nature” of Obama’s use of executive orders, it is clear the president has “usurped an extraordinary amount of authority within the executive branch.”
“This is not precedented,” he concluded. “And I point to the unilateral delay, lawless delay in my opinion, of the employer mandate as an example of this. At a minimum, I think he owes us an explanation of what his legal analysis was.”
The complete article, with video of this exchange, is at The Blaze.
Update: Six reasons why Mike Lee’s tea party response to the State of the Union was amazing
This President is the first we’ve ever seen who claims to have the authority to just change the law unilaterally.
