ry 26, 2014 5:42 pm
Members of Congress and constitutional law experts testified before the House
Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, warning that the legislative branch is in
danger of ceding its power in the face of an “imperial presidency.”
The hearing, “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully
Execute the Laws,” focused on the multiple areas President Barack Obama has
bypassed Congress, ranging from healthcare and immigration to marriage and
welfare rules.
Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George
Washington University, testified that the expansion of executive power is
happening so fast that America is at a “
constitutional
tipping point.”
“My view [is] that the president, has in fact, exceeded his authority in a
way that is creating a destabilizing influence in a three branch system,” he
said. “I want to emphasize, of course, this problem didn’t begin with President
Obama, I was critical of his predecessor President Bush as well, but the rate at
which executive power has been concentrated in our system is accelerating. And
frankly, I am very alarmed by the implications of that aggregation of
power.”
“What also alarms me, however, is that the two other branches appear not just
simply passive, but inert in the face of this concentration of authority,”
Turley said.
While Turley agrees with many of Obama’s policy positions, he steadfastly
opposes the method he goes about enforcing them.
“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,” he said. “And our
system is changing in a very fundamental way. And it’s changing without a
whimper of regret or opposition.”
Elizabeth Price Foley, a law professor at Florida International University
College of Law, agreed, warning that Congress is in danger of becoming
“superfluous.”
“Situations like this, these benevolent suspensions as they get more and more
frequent and more and more aggressive, they’re eroding our citizens’ respect for
the rule of law,” she said. “We are a country of law and not men. It’s going to
render Congress superfluous.”
Foley said Congress is not able to tackle meaningful legislation out of fear
that Obama would “simply benevolently suspend portions of the law he doesn’t
like.”
“If you want to stay relevant as an institution, I would suggest that you not
stand idly by and let the president take your power away,” she said.
Panelists and members of Congress dismissed the idea of impeachment, and
instead focused on lawsuits to challenge the constitutionality of the
president’s unilateral moves.
Four House members testified on the first panel during the hearing to
highlight legislation they have sponsored to thwart the administration’s
executive overreach.
Impeachment would “surely be extremely divisive within the Congress and the
nation generally, and would divert the attention of Congress from other
important issues of the day,” said Rep. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.).
Gerlach, who testified before the committee, introduced H.R. 3857, the
“Enforce the Take Care Clause Act,” which would expedite the review and
injunction process for federal courts to challenge executive actions. Such a
challenge would have to pass a supermajority in both chambers in order to be
fast-tracked.
“Given the growing number of examples where this President has clearly failed
to faithfully execute all laws, I believe it is time for Congress to put in
place a procedure for a fast-track, independent review of those executive
actions,” he said.
Gerlach said he proposed the bill due to Obama’s repeated alterations to his
signature law, the Affordable Care Act.
“The ACA has been revised, altered and effectively rewritten by the president
and his administration 23 times since July,” he said.
“When we have these constant changes at the president’s whim think about what
that does to businesses’ planning capabilities and hiring capabilities and their
expansion capabilities,” Rep. Tom Rice (R., S.C.) said. “We shouldn’t wonder why
our economy is struggling.”
Rice has
proposed the “Stop This
Overreaching Presidency (STOP) Resolution” as a remedy. The resolution, which
has 114 cosponsors, would direct the House to file lawsuits against four of the
president’s unilateral actions, including the employer mandate delay in
Obamacare and deferred action program for illegal immigrants.
Turley said Congress must take action to regain their power as the “thumping
heart of our system.”
“The fact is, we’re stuck with each other,” Turley said. “Whether we like it
or not in a system of shared powers. For better or worse we may deadlock, we
maybe despise each other. The framers foresaw such periods, they lived in such a
period.”
