Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
The context for this isn't Executive overreach, it's Congressional inaction.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
The context for this isn't Executive overreach, it's Congressional inaction.
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Executive orders or actions are constitutional if they fall within the purview of the Presidents enumerated powers. If they don't,
congressional inaction does not constitutionally give the executive the power to act in the place of Congress. If that were allowed, there would be no need for Congress. If that were the case, the Framers could have eliminated Article One of the Constitution which describes the powers and duties of Congress, and incorporated all of that Article's enumerated powers into Article Two which is the Executives list of duties and powers. There is no magic constitutional "context" in which the executive can simply say "if the Congress won't do it, I will." It is Congress's prerogative to act or not act on something regardless of what the President wants.
I'm pretty sure Obama would be screaming foul play if the Congress went about doing the executive's job when he wouldn't. Yet, there are many instances during Obama's tenure where he didn't, as required, enforce Congressional legislation. So would those instances have given Congress the power to say "if the President won't do it we will?" No. And Obama's administration were all up in a hissy fit when Congress wrote a letter to the Iranian government regarding the negotiations it was making with Obama's surrogates saying that Congress was unconstitutionally overreaching their power with incursion into Executive power. Even though the Congress actually did have a right to do so as they had every right to inform the Iranians what it would do if the deal was struck. Just as the President has a right to say he will veto a bill if it is passed.
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