Many Americans, including a few congressional democrats and all republicans believe that the president does not have the constitutional authority to make laws. That authority, they believe, was enumerated in the constitution for Congress. President Obama also believes that a president can unilaterally change existing laws by issuing executive orders, and that a president can selectively choose which laws to enforce. In the current instance, President Obama has chosen to not enforce certain immigration laws.
What do you think?
And for the purpose of this discussion, "Bush did it" is not an argument. If you use that argument, and you opposed what Bush did, then you should automatically oppose what Obama will be doing tonight, so that argument becomes circular.
What does the Constitution say?
Article 1 of the Constitution provides:
All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives."The enumerated powers are a list of items found in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution that set forth the authoritative capacity of Congress. They include:
To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.....
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
The Necessary and Proper Clause is as follows:
Article Two describes the office of the President of the United States, and includes:The Recommendation Clause: The president has the power and duty to recommend to Congress's consideration such measures which the president deems as "necessary and expedient".
The president sees that the laws are faithfully executed.Does the President have the authority to unilaterally choose to not enforce immigration laws now on the books; to change those laws and, and to creat new laws by Executive Order?
47 comments:
What about the Santa Claus?
You know the one where you give people free stuff and they vote for you.
It worked for the Jug Eared Jesus before and I bet he thinks it will work out just fine for him again.
So far the response from the GOP has been rather timid.
Obama "will poison the well" McConnell said. A veil threat to hold up legislation Obama wants?
Who the heck knows.
The consensus seems to be that Obama is going to stick it to us and nothing is going to be done.
What do you want the Republicans to do Lem?
Impeach Obama?
There wouldn't be a liquor store or Quickie Mart left standing in America.
He is going to drop this bomb and the grand jury is going to come in from Ferguson and everyone will see what will happen if they try to impeach him. Don't think the timing is an accident.
Is this a good night to go out for a burrito? Asking for a friend.
My sister made tacos. I asked for soft shell.
Stay away from the fish taco Lem. It can only get you in trouble.
For those interested, here's the actual plan.
Seems to be a lot more weaseling.
Trooper York said...
What do you want the Republicans to do Lem?
Impeach Obama?
There wouldn't be a liquor store or Quickie Mart left standing in America
FWIW, da yoots in Ferg have been referring to El Obola as half a cracka, so I think he may not be one of their homies, after all.
YMMV, but, you do the math, and I kinda doubt it would be that apocalyptic.
Besides, if the weather continues like this, the only place they could protest would be Texas and they've had civilized killin' there for 200 years.
Sorry. That was too much like a thread jack.
Carry on.
I do not see any good coming from this action of Obama tonight. Obama is literally shredding the Constitution and laughing in the face of the voters. Our social welfare system will be overwhelmed sucking up every penny for handouts.
Unemployment among the blacks will be even worse. There is already a lot of animus (hatred) between Hispanics and Blacks. This will make it even worse.
The white working class is also going to be squeezed by low wage workers competing and who do not abide by the laws anyway. Undercutting the middle class workers who see that they are.....once again.....being taken for chumps and treated like ATM machines.
I don't want to see it, but I do believe we will have some very violent times ahead of us. Unless the Republicans are also joined by some Democrats, I don't see anyway out of becoming another Venezuela.
There are even rumblings of revolution. Maybe that would be for the best. Tear the sucker down fast so we can rebuild before we forget what we are losing.
Brace yourself kiddos it is going to be a bumpy ride.
I thank my lucky stars I live where I do and worry about my friends and family.
Be prepared!
Pubbies have the power of the purse. But wait, if they use it they'll be accused of shutting down the gubmint. Ooh, scary. Better utter lawlessness than that!
Blacks have gotten a bad deal from Obama. They helped elect him twice, and placed in him all of their hopes and aspirations, along with a long-overdue sense of racial pride. And a belief that under a black president, their lot in life would get better.
What they got was cell phones.
Cell phones and a seemingly unlimited influx of competing labor from Mexico. Labor that would work long hours at low wages, and take the few jobs available in America's inner cities, and many jobs elsewhere.
And now Obama, the candidate in whom the blacks in America placed their trust, will usurp constitutional authority to legitimatize competing, illegal labor.
The black voters got screwed by the first black president, big time. To believe that he ever cared about them is to believe a fantasy.
His name should be Barack Jose Obama.
Hick wanders off the talking points proggie group think plantation. Scroll down for the zest.
Until the GOP actually controls both chambers, which doesn't happen until January, what can the GOP actually do?
Yeah- Obama should be impeached if he goes through with his lawless usurping of the constitutional process. And no -no other president has done this with this issue in this way.
F the media. Just F the media.
Little Johnny Boehner can pass a bill specifically refusing to fund Hussein's amnesty. Everything else, yes. The unconstitutional EO, no. Power of the purse. The Pubbies in the House have that NOW.
Jeff Sessions is beating on Little Johnny Boehner's tanning coffin telling him to come out and fight, but Johnny's not orange enough yet.
Effing liar. The borders are not secure.
He is taking measures not allowed under the separation of powers clause.
I'm drinking to the death of the Constitution.
It had a pretty good run.
Shorter Obama speech: Not amnesty, just all of the features of amnesty. Also, you’re for it, or you hate children.
Not exactly on topic. But Eisenhower faced essentially the same problem of illegal immigration when he took office.
He solved it in a much different way than our current President intends to do.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html
Enforce existing law, fine business owners up to the limit of that law, every single time. No welfare of any sort, kind, type, or description, for illegals.
It is a real deal, the constitutional issues, I don't disagree. It should be seen as a major, perhaps definitive constitutional crisis. Though to my mind the bigger deal is the ability of the executive to selectively enforce the law as written, a constitutional crises within itself.
I have no ideas on how to fix that problem, given the maleficence of our current educational, political, and media class (or minders if one prefers).
IMO, just one more step down the road. The rule of men and not of law. No one cares because they're dumb, fat, and happy - right now.
Sometimes societies come out of the tailspin, sometimes they don't.
As for the Republicans, I doubt they'll do anything. They won't do anything about Obamacare either. I have no idea what they stand for, except they're slightly not as bad as the Democrats.
No doubt they'll give us Bush III in 2016, and you can say hello to Hillary! in the White House.
President Obama, FYI, you can't give something away when you don't own it and you don't own the country so you can't give it away to a bunch of illegals. Public opinion and backlash will shock the crap out of Obama and his fan club aka the media.
I suggest we stop calling him Obama and instead call him King Asshole.
why are we talking about the constitution? it doesn't matter to these guys.
Michael Haz said...
Blacks have gotten a bad deal from Obama. They helped elect him twice, and placed in him all of their hopes and aspirations, along with a long-overdue sense of racial pride. And a belief that under a black president, their lot in life would get better.
I understand you Haz but I think you have to understand that you probably sound like a concern troll to them --or worse, a friend of Bill Cosby. You're white, Haz. There is nothing you can say that will convince. Plus this isn't about anybody getting better -- it's about getting even -- even if it's at a much baser level.
I can't verify it yet but it looks like those illegals who qualify will be immune from deportation "temporarily" and able to get a three year work permit.
This sets up the primary issue of the 2016 campaign and doesn't actually seem like all that good of a deal for our illegal friends. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.
And I think that the number who eventually get those permits will be far, far below the 4.1 million estimated.
I understand you Haz but I think you have to understand that you probably sound like a concern troll to them
A troll? Seriously? On a blog where I have commented and posted topics since the blog's inception?
And I sound like a concern troll to whom, the blacks who frequent this blog? Ha.
But thanks for telling me I'm white, I've been uncertain lo the past sixty-some years.
The President – in an astonishingly arrogant and self-indulgent proclamation of Himself – has made what might have been a question of pragmatic compassion and political prudence into an assault upon the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Here is what the President said. The Senate passed what I wanted. The House was unwilling to do so without amendments I don’t want, so I have to act alone. You don’t have to have gone to law school to know that this is not the system of government that was described for years on Schoolhouse Rock (“Yes, I’m only a bill on Capitol Hill/ And I got as far as Capitol Hill “). It is, in fact, quite scary business. So scary in fact, that President Obama himself has repeatedly disavowed his authority to do this … until he decided that it was in his interest to do it.
Congress simply can’t let that go unchallenged. President Obama has taken an issue about immigration and made it one about the Republic. He should lose that one every time. Indeed, Democrats should want him to lose it. Do they really want a Republican President to pick and choose what laws will be enforced?
Beyond matters of justice and prudence, is what the President did legal?
The argument in his favor is that the President has absolute discretion in the enforcement of the law. He can enforce the law or not. The ability to “defer action” on certain deportations means that he can suspend huge swaths of the law. If Congress doesn’t like what he’s done, it can impeach him or defund the government. This is to see the separation of powers as a game of chicken.
This view is at odds with the Constitutional command that the President take care that the laws be faithfully executed. We would not think that, if the President announced that the IRS need not collect taxes or enforce the drug laws that he would be acting in a constitutionally permissible manner.
The President has claimed that what he did last night is no different than what Presidents have done before him for fifty years. That’s not true. Presidents Bush and Reagan acted in ways that were consistent with Congressional action and, in any event, what prior Presidents have done was not like this. It’s one thing to prioritize prosecution due to limited resources. It’s quite another to simply disregard the law because Congress won’t do what you want it to.
If a President truly has the unfettered discretion to pick and choose between what laws he will enforce and what laws he will not, then we no longer have a Republic.
A troll? Seriously? On a blog where I have commented and posted topics since the blog's inception?
Haz, I'm asking you to distinguish between what you think I'm saying and how you are perceived by Crack et al.
My saying you're not a troll (you aren't) isn't the same as me saying they think you are.
Chickelit:
No, sorry. I write what I mean to say. I don't concern myself with what others think about it, especially people who have a lopsided view of the world.
You may find it good and expedient to temper what you write by filtering it through what you believe Crack or Althouse or someone else may think about it, and that's fine because it's what you want.
But I don't do that.
This has been a long time coming. Presidents in both parties have been execu-legislating for decades.
But it's overstating it to say he's "shredding" the Constitution. The remedy is there, if only Congress will rise up.
The Congress controls everything that gets paid for -- which is pretty much everything the government does.
There's no need to "shut down" the government. It's really not complicated. There are two ways to do it:
1. Congress can enact appropriations pretty much any way it wants; they tend to group them all into massive bills, but they could enact them department by department. In fact, Congress could fund every single aspect of the government but one single office that facilitates this stuff.
My preference would be to enact department by department; that way, he'd have to veto everything, which he'd never do.
2. A "rider" can be added to almost anything, that specifically prohibits spending money for X. This is what got Reagan in so much trouble with Iran-Contra -- a prohibition on spending for the Freedom Fighters in Nicaragua.
My suggestion would be to attach it to some appropriation for an agency Obama loves but few others care about: like the National Labor Relations Board. If he vetoes it, he defunds an agency for which there will be little grass-roots enthusiasm.
That yields a nice consolation prize.
If you really care about the Republic, pray and work for Congress to get back its constitutional mojo. That's the real problem.
@Haz: The biggest thing that I haven't said so far is the following:
I sometimes look at the immigration problem in a purely physical way -- like ions migrating through a semi-permeable barrier. The barrier slows the mixing and without it, we would soon enough have a true equilibrium inside and out. But the reason the ions migrate inside is because they are met with need. The "need" is something people have been lied to about by both parties. The driving force for unchecked immigration is cheaper labor at both the high skill and low skill work places. The only effective way to counter this is for individuals to insist on a fair and transparent set of rules -- a rule of laws. This goes for the big employers and the individual families who hire.
The counterargument is that America needs to compete in global marketplace and therefore labor markets need to be as fluid as possible. This is the problem -- not a fence.
If you really care about the Republic, pray and work for Congress to get back its constitutional mojo. That's the real problem.
This
Well, I always look at it this way:
The president is charged with the responsibility to fully enforce all federal laws. He isn't doing it. He should be made to do it.
And if he doesn't like a law, then he should be compelled to follow the constitutional processes that set forth how laws are made and changed.
The constitution also requires that the president secure and protect our borders.
In other words, the real problem isn't the President, but the lack of concern about what he's doing...
By Congress (many of the GOPers are actually in favor of what he did)...
And by "We the People"...
Fr Martin Fox said....
If you really care about the Republic, pray and work for Congress to get back its constitutional mojo. That's the real problem.
Another reason this is a better solution is that we are a more traditional e pluribus unum society than a top down de uno plur (from one to many) one.
One way to do this is to repurpose negative energy toward POTUS (he thrives on it, apparently) and put that energy into supporting the Congress we elected to take over in January.
Fr. Martin, there's an argument out today that Obama's new program will be funded by fees paid by the applicants and thus it will not require congressional allocations.
We'll see if that holds up.
Rabel:
I heard that too, and some GOPers are falsely claiming that means they can't stop it.
Not so.
That's what my second idea was aimed at. If Congress attaches a "rider" to some other legislation, in which it prohibits the expenditure of any gov't funds for the implementation of President Obama's executive actions, that covers those fees.
And if they attach it to an appropriation for some small-ball agency which the Left cares about, but most Americans don't, then the consolation prize is that Obama's veto costs him something.
And, of course, if the Congress does this again and again, they can shut down, slice by slice, all manner of problematic government activities.
Yes, it really is that simple (if you get majorities in both houses).
Fr Fox:
What you have described is essentially the same as what the GOP is planning beginning in January.
A series of twelve (I believe that is the correct number) budget bills will be introduced in series. Each will cover a portion of the federal government (i.e. DOD, DOJ, etc.) and will be taken through both houses without allowing any earmarks or other pork.
The relevant budget bill will specifically exclude funding for the immigration executive order. Should President Obama disagree with that, he will need to veto the budget for an entire segment of the government.
Michael:
Yes, but there's one thing that's very important they do -- which your description doesn't clarify whether they will do:
The legislation to which the controversial language is attached must be carefully chosen; it should not include anything that would -- if vetoed and not funded -- create meaningful blowback for the Congress.
That's what caused them to buckle in the "shutdown" showdown.
Hence my suggestion, the NLRB. Or, it could be the National Endowment for the Humanities. Or PBS/NPR. Or any number of minor projects that the left especially loves.
From your description, they may be making the mistake I've seen them make before: attaching it to too big a bill.
And, of course, that comment about fees came from:
"House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers attempted to throw cold water on the idea of using spending bills to prohibit funding for employment documents for illegal aliens, saying that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is funded by fees it collects, inuring itself from a shutdown."
“To alter or change the fee matter, it would take a change of law – an authorization – to change the immigration act that setup the fee structure. It would take an act of Congress,” Rogers told reporters.
And just how the Hell can we expect him, the Republican Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, to do anything about an act of Congress.
We are led by liars, incompetents, fools and grifters.
'House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers attempted to throw cold water on the idea of using spending bills to prohibit funding for employment documents for illegal aliens, saying that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is funded by fees it collects, inuring itself from a shutdown.'
Partially or fully? The difference matters.
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