RightChange: Who Needs Congress? Obama’s Got Executive Orders

“We’re not gonna use signing statements as way of doing an end run around Congress.” That was Obama responding to a question while on the campaign trail in 2008.  A few years later, signing statement number 77 just left the Oval Office with Barack Obama's signature.  This latest one, against a bill Congress literally struck down.  This should come as no surprise, as Obama has made a point to say one thing and do the other.

Granted, President George W. Bush signed a little over 200 over eight years, but Bush didn’t make a campaign promise like this:

“I taught the Constitution for ten years. I believe in the Constitution. And I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We’re not gonna use signing statements as way of doing an end run around Congress. Alright.”

For someone who is so adamant about obeying the Constitution, he sure has proved how useless it can be.  Since he has taken office, he has used executive orders to bypass Congress on our kinetic military action in Libya, advance cap and trade regulation, healthcare, and funding his Czars.  Now, he is using another statement to reinstate a law that Congress literally struck down when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker.  Remember the DREAM Act?:

“On Friday, the Obama administration issued a memo announcing that federal immigration officials do not have to deport illegal aliens if they are enrolled in any type of education program, if their family members have volunteered for U.S. military service, or even if they are pregnant or nursing.

This new policy of “prosecutorial discretion” was quietly announced on Friday afternoon, and completely ignored by the mainstream press.”

The DREAM Act will grant automatic citizenship to over 2 million illegal aliens and does nothing to increase immigration enforcement.  The tragedy is that President Obama failed to produce an immigration policy despite his promise to have one by the first year of his Presidency and is now trying to pass off an executive order to enforce the DREAM ACT as an immigration policy.

The DREAM ACT executive order is unique in that a Democratic-led Senate defeated the DREAM ACT.   Congress had good reason to strike down this law; one reason is that it is a band-aid for an immigration policy.  You can also expect these executive orders to start appearing in bulk:

“Mr. Obama has not given up hope of progress on Capitol Hill, aides said, and has scheduled a session with Republican leaders on health care later this month. But in the aftermath of a special election in Massachusetts that cost Democrats unilateral control of the Senate, the White House is getting ready to act on its own in the face of partisan gridlock heading into the midterm campaign.

We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.

Any president has vast authority to influence policy even without legislation, through executive orders, agency rule-making and administrative fiat. And Mr. Obama’s success this week in pressuring the Senate to confirm 27 nominations by threatening to use his recess appointment power demonstrated that executive authority can also be leveraged to force action by Congress.”

If Obama is going to go willy-nilly on passing laws, why does he even need Congress?  Clearly he needs a lesson in obeying the Constitution.

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