Enforce the Law Act

[Phatscotty]

You guys hear about this?

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 (Congress).

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.

The administration has unilaterally altered Obamacare at least 20 times. Most recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that millions have been exempted from the individual mandate due to a rule change.

The administration also announced last week that individuals would be able to keep their so-called “substandard” health insurance plans that do not comply with Obamacare until October 2017.

Additionally, Obama unilaterally instituted the Dream Act by creating a deferred action program for young illegal immigrants and changed work requirements in welfare.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) said the Obama administration has “ignored” the Constitution.

“From Obamacare to welfare and education reform, to our nation’s drug enforcement and immigration laws, President Obama has been picking and choosing which laws to enforce,” he said. “In place of the checks and balances established by the Constitution, President Obama has proclaimed that ‘I refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer’ and that ‘where [Congress] won’t act, I will.’”

“Throughout the Obama presidency we have seen a pattern: President Obama circumvents Congress when he doesn’t get his way,” Goodlatte said.

Democrats called the vote a “sham.”

“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.”

“The fact that I happen to think the president is right on many of these policies does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing [it] is wrong, and that this can be a dangerous change in our system,” the liberal law professor said. “And our system is changing in a very fundamental way. And it’s changing without a whimper of regret or opposition.”

Arguing that Obama should agree with the legislation, Gowdy gave a “pop quiz” on the House floor prior to the vote.

“That may seem unfair to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but I’m going to give them a hint,” he said. “The answer to every one of the questions is the same.”

“I’m going to read a quote and then you tell me who said it,” Gowdy said. “‘These last few years we’ve seen an unacceptable abuse of power having a president whose priority is expanding his own power.’ Any guess on who said that? Mr. Speaker, it was Sen. Barack Obama.”

“Here’s another one: ‘No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as a coequal branch the Constitution made it.’”

“’I taught the Constitution for 10 years, I believe in the Constitution,’” Gowdy again quoted then-Sen. Obama.

“So my question Mr. Speaker is what’s changed?” Gowdy asked. “How does going from being a senator to a president rewrite the constitution? What’s different from when he was a senator?”

http://freebeacon.com/house-passes-enforce-the-law-act/

[saxitoxin]

This is interesting and one thing I don't understand about the rationale behind the U.S. constitution; one body makes laws but then an independent body that is separately elected enforces the laws. There is no mechanism for force the second body to enforce the laws since the second body can only be removed for high crimes. A parliamentary system makes much more sense I think. I'll need to research further. DoomYoshi can concurrently research this and whichever of us reports back first will win a coupon for 50% off a small Dairy Queen Blizzard-brand ice cream treat (prize to be provided by AoG).

[thegreekdog]

While I agree with the aim of the bill, I also agree with Representative Conyers analysis of why the bill came into place.

I fully expect that (1) If and when we have a Republican president again, he or she will attempt to circumvent the Constitution (I think this is an ongoing thing that started with FDR, but what do I know?); and (2) If and when we have a Republican president again, Democrats in Congress will attempt to pass a similar bill to this one for the reasons Representative Conyers indicates above.

[Metsfanmax]

“Here’s another one: ‘No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as a coequal branch the Constitution made it.’”

So if he believes that, then he should stop addressing the symptoms of the problem and address the cause of the problem. This law doesn't give Congress a backbone, it just puts a restraint on the executive branch so that they're both less useful. Congress might be getting themselves closer to coequal this way, but it's not in the right direction.

[saxitoxin]

An editorial in the New York Journal in 1787 declares the proposed constitution is deeply flawed as the president is not actually co-equal and the suggestion he is equal is just capitalist propaganda to help get ratification ...

To be the fountain of all honors in the United States-commander in chief of the army, navy, and militia; with the power of making treaties and of granting pardons; and to be vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, and put their names down upon calling the yeas and nays for that purpose-is in reality to be a king, as much a king as the king of Great Britain, and a king too of the worst kind: an elective king.

If such powers as these are to be trusted in the hands of any man, they ought, for the sake of preserving the peace of the community, at once to be made hereditary. Much as I abhor kingly government, yet I venture to pronounce, where kings are admitted to rule they should most certainly be vested with hereditary power. The election of a king whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion; and I am perfectly serious when I declare, that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States until this office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power, or made perpetual and hereditary.

When I say that our future president will be as much a king as the king of Great Britain, I only ask of my readers to look into the constitution of that country, and then tell me what important prerogative the king of Great Britain is entitled to which does not also belong to the president during his continuance in office. We may also suppose, without trespassing upon the bounds of probability, that this man may not have the means of supporting, in private life, the dignity of his former station; that like Caesar, he may be at once ambitious and poor, and deeply involved in debt. Such a man would die a thousand deaths rather than sink from the heights of splendor and power, into obscurity and wretchedness. I would therefore advise my countrymen seriously to ask themselves this question: Whether they are prepared to receive a king? If they are, to say so at once, and make the kingly office hereditary; to frame a constitution that should set bounds to his power, and, as far as possible, secure the liberty of the subject. If we are not prepared to receive a king, let us call another convention to revise the proposed constitution, and form it anew on the principles of a confederacy of free republics; but by no means, under pretense of a republic, to lay the foundation for a military government, which is the worst of all tyrannies.

http://books.google.com/books?id=1q0hcy ... 22&f=false

[thegreekdog]

I agree with said editorial.

[saxitoxin]

Richard Henry Lee discusses the motivations of the framers of the constitution and the negative campaigning that was used to get it ratified ...

Some of the advocates are only pretended federalists; in fact they wish for an abolition of the state governments. Some of them I believe to be honest federalists, who wish to preserve substantially the state governments united under an efficient federal head; and many of them are blind tools without any object. The opposers are generally men who support the rights of the body of the people, and are properly republicans. The advocates are generally men not very friendly to those rights, and properly anti-republicans.

Had the advocates left the constitution, as they ought to have done, to be adopted or rejected on account of its own merits or imperfections, I do not believe the gentlemen who framed it would ever have been even alluded to in the contest by the opposers. Instead of this, the ardent advocates began by quoting names as incontestible authorities for the implicit adoption of the system, without any examination—treated all who opposed it as friends of anarchy: and with an indecent virulence addressed M——n, G——y, L——e [this refers to George Mason of Virginia, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, and Lee himself. Mason and Gerry were both in the Constitutional Convention, refused to sign the Constitution, and fought ratification], and almost every man of weight they could find in the opposition by name.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_ ... &Itemid=27

[Phatscotty]

“Here’s another one: ‘No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as a coequal branch the Constitution made it.’”

So if he believes that, then he should stop addressing the symptoms of the problem and address the cause of the problem. This law doesn't give Congress a backbone, it just puts a restraint on the executive branch so that they're both less useful. Congress might be getting themselves closer to coequal this way, but it's not in the right direction.

I believe he addresses that around minute 4 of the speech

[mrswdk]

It's good that they give these bills such emotive names, because it saves anyone having to read further than the top of the first page.

[Phatscotty]

While I agree with the aim of the bill, I also agree with Representative Conyers analysis of why the bill came into place.

I fully expect that (1) If and when we have a Republican president again, he or she will attempt to circumvent the Constitution (I think this is an ongoing thing that started with FDR, but what do I know?); and (2) If and when we have a Republican president again, Democrats in Congress will attempt to pass a similar bill to this one for the reasons Representative Conyers indicates above.

Do you have an opinion on whether or not the Executive Branch has too much power? And what do you think about the President's repeated threats to go around or act without Congress?

And I think you are right about FDR, could even start with Woodrow Wilson if you wanted to.

[thegreekdog]

While I agree with the aim of the bill, I also agree with Representative Conyers analysis of why the bill came into place.

I fully expect that (1) If and when we have a Republican president again, he or she will attempt to circumvent the Constitution (I think this is an ongoing thing that started with FDR, but what do I know?); and (2) If and when we have a Republican president again, Democrats in Congress will attempt to pass a similar bill to this one for the reasons Representative Conyers indicates above.

Do you have an opinion on whether or not the Executive Branch has too much power? And what do you think about the President's repeated threats to go around or act without Congress?

And I think you are right about FDR, could even start with Woodrow Wilson if you wanted to.

I think the Executive Branch has way too much power (but I blame a combination of the Executive Branch and Congress). Essentially, the "bureaucracy" that we all talk about and most of us hate is all executive branch. I deal with the Internal Revenue Code, which is federal law and passed by Congress and signed by the pres-o-dent. I'm sitting here at my desk looking at two large books. Then I gaze to the left a little bit and there are six books of federal tax regulations which, arguably, have the same force and effect as law (they don't from a legal perspective, but they do from a practical perspective). I'm rambling, but the point is that the federal executive branch and associated departments and czars basically do whatever the f*ck they want. But that's because Congress punts on all that stuff.

I think the president's threats to go around or act without Congress are disgusting, but not any different than any other president (post-FDR or I guess post-Wilson).

[ChrisPond]

While I agree with the aim of the bill, I also agree with Representative Conyers analysis of why the bill came into place.

I fully expect that (1) If and when we have a Republican president again, he or she will attempt to circumvent the Constitution (I think this is an ongoing thing that started with FDR, but what do I know?); and (2) If and when we have a Republican president again, Democrats in Congress will attempt to pass a similar bill to this one for the reasons Representative Conyers indicates above.

I agree with thegreekdog. Republicans are not much different than Democrats and both parties are just playing a power game amongst themselves. The loser is the American people, no matter who wins the power struggle between the R's and D's.

[beezer]

i can just imagine LBJ saying, "you know what, there are a lot of people that are still hung up on race. We're going to delay the implementation so as to give them more time to comply with the civil rights act of 1964. We'll still insist that we can regulate interstate commerce, but desegregation can be put off for now."

[tzor]

It's good that they give these bills such emotive names, because it saves anyone having to read further than the top of the first page.

You don't understand congress. Most bills actually do the exact opposite of what the title says it does precisely because no one actually reads further than the top of the first page, including the members of congress who voted for the damn thing.

[mrswdk]

[mrswdk]

It's good that they give these bills such emotive names, because it saves anyone having to read further than the top of the first page.

You don't understand congress. Most bills actually do the exact opposite of what the title says it does precisely because no one actually reads further than the top of the first page, including the members of congress who voted for the damn thing.

[tzor]

Hey ...
Is the "Affordable Care Act" affordable? No.

But let's just look at 2013
Has the "Student Success Act" resulted in one successful student? No.
Has the "Homes for Heroes Act of 2013" actually resulted in homes for our heroes? (Really ... Peter Parker is still renting!)

And the list goes on and on ...

[kuthoer]

OMG! FIVE DEMOCRATS AGREE WITH "ENFORCE THE LAW ACT"

Truly a bipartisan act......