Below is my column yesterday in the Sunday New York Daily News on the unfolding controversy over President Obama’s unilateral actions to circumvent Congress. The pledge of the President to “go it alone” has already resulted in court losses for the Administration and a growing separation of powers crisis. I testified (here and here and here) and wrote a column on President Obama’s increasing circumvention of Congress in negating or suspending U.S. laws. I ran another column recently listing such incidents of executive over-reach that ideally would have included this potentially huge commitment under Obama’s claimed discretionary authority. I happen to believe that the President is right in many of these areas but that does not excuse the means that he is using to achieve these goals.
The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court late last month that President Obama violated the separation of powers in appointing officials is the type of decision that usually concentrates the mind of a chief executive. Obama, however, appeared to double down on his strategy — stating in a Rose Garden speech on Tuesday that he intended to expand, not reduce, his use of unilateral actions to circumvent Congress.
Summing up his position, the President threw down the gauntlet at Congress: “So sue me.”
The moment was reminiscent of George W. Bush’s taunting Iraqi insurgents over 10 years ago by saying, “Bring ’em on.” It was irresponsible bravado from a man who was not himself at the receiving end of IEDs and constant attacks that would go on to cost us thousands of military personnel. I imagine some lawyers at the Justice Department may feel the same way about Obama’s “sue me” taunt. They are the ones being hammered in federal courts over sweeping new interpretations and unilateral executive actions.
The renewed promise to go it alone is a familiar refrain from this President. He even pledged to take unilateral action to circumvent Congress in front of both Houses, in his State of the Union address this year — to the curious delight of half of Congress, which applauded wildly at the notion of being made irrelevant.
The President was as good as his word. When Congress failed to pass the Dream Act loosening immigration laws for certain groups, the President ordered the same result unilaterally. His administration also ordered massive changes in Obamacare — from lifting statutory deadlines, to exempting classes of business, to shifting hundreds of millions of dollars from appropriated purposes to other uses.
The political slogan of “no compromise” has migrated into legal strategy with disastrous results. That is precisely what happened in the recess appointments decision in NLRB vs. Canning. I testified on the President’s recess appointments in Congress after they were made and said that the nominations in my view were flagrantly unconstitutional.
The fact that the administration decided to force a confrontation on such a weak case shows not just a lack of judgment but a cavalier attitude towards the costs of such losses. While he clearly has authority to set enforcement priorities in areas like immigration law, Obama has repeatedly stepped well over the line of separation.
These acts of defiance of Congress often come with chest-pounding acclaim, but they also come with costs. For example, by violating the Constitution on recess appointments, a huge array of rulings out of the National Labor Relations Board could be invalid — creating havoc in the area.
Likewise, the President’s recent loss in the Hobby Lobby case, regarding contraception provisions of Obamacare, will require huge changes in such coverage . In a case that may be issued any day now in Halbig vs. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit could strike down another unilateral policy on tax credits under Obamacare that would mean that the administration wrongly committed billions of dollars without authority. That decision could jeopardize the very viability of health-care reform.
In our system, there is no license to go it alone. Rather, the Republic’s democratic architecture requires compromise. The process is designed to moderate legislation and create a broader consensus in support of these laws. Nor is congressional refusal to act on a particular prescription of how to fix the economy or repair immigration laws an excuse. Sometimes the country (and by extension Congress) is divided. When that happens, less gets done. The Framers understood such times. They lived in such a time.
While Obama did not create the über-presidency, he has pushed it to a new level of autonomy and authority. It is a model that Democrats may soon regret. Just as Obama has unilaterally rewritten federal laws and ordered the nonenforcement of others, the next President could use the same authority to gut environmental or employment discrimination laws. An über-President is only liberating when he is your über-President.
And whether it is “sue me” or “bring it on,” presidential taunts tend to play better politically than practically. The invitation for a congressional lawsuit may sound on its face like it’s welcoming judicial review, but it’s not. Obama’s administration has fought to block such review by challenging the right of members and citizens to be heard in federal courts.
President Obama’s taunt will no doubt be answered in kind. Indeed, the House is preparing just such a lawsuit. And so, our national politics have finally descended to the politics of the schoolyard playground. However, unlike on the playground, presidential taunts have constitutional consequences.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.
New York Daily News June 6, 2014
Exactly Annie! They require an increasingly ignorant and dependent electorate to grow their bureaucracy. This President’s ego wouldn’t allow another administration to claim total victory and that is his Achilles’s Heel.
John Oliver, Choose who you spend time w/ wisely. You’ll never get that time back.
Comment eaten?
John Oliver
Dredd, I expected you to bring some facts to this thread but that apparently “defies reason and logic” as well.
Do you have anything of substance to add or is this sophomoric rhetoric the extent of your intellectual capacity?
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Waiting for you to mature grasshopper.
Then we will see what your needs are.
Overcome your association with bully philosophy and/or religion that sanctifies oppression and victimization of the public, and we can proceed with your understanding.
Until then you are likely to be drawing karma to your doorstep.
“It is the racism lurking beneath the hood.” Dredd Yep, started right out of the shoot with the birthers.
And, those Irish vote straight Dem!
Squeeky, You have Dems pegged well as well, as our village idiots here. NOTHING riles Caucasian Dems more than conservative, black, women. We have a “progressive” Madison, Wi. DJ where live who calls Condolezza Rice, “Aunt Jemima.” There are no bigger racists than blue collar Boston Irish. NO BIGGER RACISTS.
Nick Spinelli
Lloyd, This has been a failed Presidency for several years. Worst President since WW@2.
People always look in the rearview mirror and see better days.
Let’s see what the historians think, since this is what they thought of GWB:
Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations. – See more at: http://hnn.us/article/48916#sthash.0qouNaUB.dpuf
And when the GOP works so hard to make sure Obama fails,he is bound to take a hit. He has done many things that I disagree with. Using the Espionage Act too many times, threatening journalists with jail time, Afghanistan surge, trying to silence whistleblowers, not jailing banksters, bailing out failed institutions, Timothy Geithner, and others. But to say he is a failed president is hyperbole. He took a country on the precipice of an economic collapse and righted it. There has been 52 consecutive months of job creation – the longest job creation streak in history. He passed healthcare reform that could have been much better if GOP had at least contributed something. He ended the GOP, GWB, WMD Iraq war. Conflicts remain but at least American blood isn’t being spilled for nation building. For you ‘I hate immigrants’ fans, Obama has deported more than any other president. Improved energy efficiency standards, higher gas milage, cleaner air, fewer deaths and healthcare issues from coal plants, yet he dramatically increased fracking. He stopped fighting discriminatory actions against LGBT, ended DOMA, stopped the marijuana fight in states where it is legalized, consumer protections, fighting GOP voter suppression, the list goes on….. , as long as you aren’t blind.
Lloyd Blankfien-Bankster, I retrieved your comment at 10:31 PM.
I dunno, sounds more like regressivism, John.O.
Progressivism exists in both parties Annie.
Dredd, I expected you to bring some facts to this thread but that apparently “defies reason and logic” as well.
Do you have anything of substance to add or is this sophomoric rhetoric the extent of your intellectual capacity?
The Bush Cheney regime were exposed for the liars and war criminals they are, but no one cared enough to do a damn thing.
Squeeky, go get some grease so you can be a smooth operator. Get some for Spinny while you are at it. You are both terribly rusty.
“… I feel like I am picking on the Village Idiot …”
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Spinny you always feel like doing that.
It is your bully pulpit thang.
You are always picking on “the village idiot” without knowing who or what that is.
Like your Siamese twin Mr. Indoctrinated who thinks Einstein is the village idiot.
Annie,
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
It takes more than being awake. We apparently haven’t suffered enough of the current “long train of abuses” to make that enlightened choice. This is why the current regime should remain completely exposed like a raw nerve.
Bron
Romney isnt exactly what we have in mind and neither is Christie.
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Correct.
They are not quite as saintly as what you “have in mind” (Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy).
Annie
Yes indeed, he’s awoken ‘something’ in conservatives. No doubt about it.
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Yep.
It is the racism lurking beneath the hood.
John Oliver
…
I see chains in your future.
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Your eyes see what your amygdala tells them to see (The Toxic Bridge To Everywhere).
Your cultural amygdala, a growth of circuitry around your physical amygdala, packages all sensory input into what is acceptable in your culture (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala).
There are circuits of oppression in your cultural amygdala, which informs me of your culture.
Romney isnt exactly what we have in mind and neither is Christie.
@NickS
Obama has been such a flop that I almost feel bad about criticizing him. I feel like I am picking on the Village Idiot who can ‘t help being the way he is.
That being said, it is a shame that the first black president has been laid low, in large part, by the very self -loathing white folks who are his biggest supporters. I remember a prof in English lit who said the most sexually animated people ever were the Victorians who saw sex everywhere including the legs of tables which must be kept covered lest one be led into temptation.
Similarly, the Dims are now so racially animated that the mere disagreement with Obama is RACIST!!! Sooo everything has been made easy for him by them. See Nobel Prize egs. In fact, it is their own “inner Klansman ” which motivates them. Deep inside, they really don’t think black people are capable of learning anything and being able to live in a first world country. That is why they get sooo livid at black conservatives. . . because those “boys ” don ‘t know their place.
Sooo, those Dims will shamelessly cover for Obama, lie like dogs, spin and deceive, because to do otherwise might expose their own secret racism.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter