My biggest complaint about President Obama, especially in his later years, was his strong tendency to overreach with executive orders. Just weeks into his presidency, Trump is already as bad as Obama in this respect, and getting worse by the day.
It is up to Congress to regain their appropriate Constitutionally delineated powers. They have been ceding so many of them to the executive and judiciary branches for so long, I'm not sure it will be possible. I agree that an Imperial Presidency is bad for America, no matter who sits in the office.
I agree. I think Obama started a very bad precedent as did Harry Reid with the nuclear option. What they failed to think about was the extreme chance a republican would be POTUS with both the house and senate. All bets are off now and the dems will have to deal with it for at least two years.
Yeah. The problem with changing the rules of the game is it can come back and bite you. I wonder about the long term impacts of Obama's use of executive orders and the Senate making Supreme Court Appointments unambiguously partisan.
We said many times that Obama was starting a bad precedent in many ways and one was with the over reach of executive orders. We said at the time no matter who the President is they would follow that lead. It was accepted by most on the left because they wanted the orders to go through. So now it is what it is.........which is the new normal thanks to Obama's reaching.
I do agree that Obama set a very bad precedent but it's unreasonable to expect that his successors would not follow his lead. Also, I don't think any of Trump's EOs have been overreaching like some of Obama's. Let's talk after the SCOTUS upholds the overturn of one of Trumps EOs.
The perspective you lack is a well grounded understanding of the Constitution. With limited exceptions such as approval of treaties, the Const puts power over foreign affairs with the executive branch. Congress was given power over most domestic affairs. This is probably the biggest problem with Obama's EOs. His EOs encroached on the powers and duties of Congress over domestic matters. What Trump pro-actively did with his visa EO was within his Constitutional powers over foreign affairs.
This. My hope - and it may come to pass - was that Trump would be unpopular enough with the populace that the GOP congress would feel more comfortable pushing back and trying to regain some of the control they've lost over the years. For the constitutional scholars, I'm curious which of the executive orders so far have lapsed into congressional realm. Maybe it's eight years of "phone and pen" democracy, but most of the things he's done so far seem to be in the realm of how the executive will move forward in enforcing law, as opposed to simply rewriting. You could (and maybe should) argue that because there was no immediate national situation requiring executive action, his decision on immigration should have gone through congress, since it is effectively dictating immigration law, but I could also see someone arguing that what he's doing is responding to an immediate need which has gone unaddressed to this point, and that he's working within the boundaries of what he is able to do under the law. I do think if he writes an executive order to roll back Dodd-Frank, I'd be concerned. I have a lot of concerns about the law, but it's still the law.
"Overreaching" is not the right term for Obama's EOs. "Intentionally underreaching" might be a better term...especially for illegal immigration orders. And what's the Trump EO liberals have actually convinced themselves they're upset over? The temporary travel ban because they think it targets muslims. But the countries were selected by Obama's Homeland Security Department! I think the "worst" EO was the reorganization of the NSC.
I slightly disagree. First, the Republican Congress did not cede. What happened was that Obama could not get what he wanted through them, so he said "fine, I will do what I want anyway." Second, it's up to the Judicial Branch to straighten out the mess Obama made of Separation of Powers. They have already done some of it. Indeed, Obama lost more in front of the SCOTUS than any President in modern history http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/06...supreme-court-more-than-any-modern-president/ (and even more Obama losses may still pile up). ------------- from that article ^ " .... Overall, the administration has managed a record of 79-96, a win rate of just above 45 percent. ..... Now, there may be a handful of cases to add to the totals before the next president takes office, but we can essentially audit the 44th president’s judicial books now. That audit doesn’t look too good when compared to the record of his predecessors. George W. Bush achieved a record of 89-59 (60 percent)—and that’s if you fold in all of 2000-2001, including cases argued when Bill Clinton was president in what was an unusually bad term for the government (roughly 35 percent). Clinton, in turn, had an overall record of 148-87 (63 percent), again including all of 1992-1993. George H.W. Bush went 91-39 (70 percent), while Ronald Reagan weighed in with an astounding record of 260-89 (about 75 percent). While it looks like this is merely a tale of a downwards trend in recent years, Jimmy Carter still managed a 139-65 record (68 percent). Indeed, the overall government win rate over the last 50 years—I’ve calculated back to the early 1960s—is comfortably over 60 percent. * * * No, this is a situation where, as noted Supreme Court advocate Miguel Estrada put it a few years ago when asked to opine on the administration’s poor record: “When you have a crazy client who makes you take crazy positions, you’re gonna lose some cases.” So the reason this president has done so poorly at the high court is because he sees no limits on federal—especially prosecutorial—power and accords himself the ability to enact his own legislative agenda when Congress refuses to do so. The numbers don’t lie."
Here is one more quote from the Federalist piece above that shows what a statistical outlier of a bad president Obama was. --------------------- ".......You could argue, of course, that a simple won-loss rate doesn’t tell the whole story. After all, Obama’s solicitors general have faced a bench occupied by a majority of Republican appointees. (As did Clinton’s, but that didn’t stop him from pipping his Republican successor.) But the news gets even worse when you look at unanimous losses. This term, the federal government argued an incredible 10 cases without gaining a single vote, not even that of one of President Obama’s own nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. That brings his total to 44 unanimous losses. For comparison, George W. Bush suffered 30 unanimous losses, while Bill Clinton withstood 31. In other words, Obama has lost unanimously 50 percent more than his two immediate predecessors. These cases have been in such disparate areas as criminal procedure, religious liberty, property rights, immigration, securities regulation, tax law, and the separation of powers..... (then gives a list of some of Obama's unanimous losses)...." (link above)
I should have been clearer. I was speaking of the confirmation process, not the judges. I choose to believe that the justices, once appointed, follow the Constitution, not their political leanings. What I was commenting on was leaving the Scalia seat open for a year giving a Republican President a chance to fill the seat. "If one year is OK, how about five? Democratic partisans are asking.
Interesting articles, Joe Fan. I did not realize how often King Obama got bitchslapped by the high court. Must be because the mainstream media was too busy fellating him to report on it fairly. One of the aspects of Congressional power that has been ceded to the executive for all practical if not legal purposes, is the most important one of all - the power of the purse. Congress, in choosing to pass omnibus spending bills and relying on baseline budgeting rather than writing a real budget and reviewing (and sunsetting) the grossly bloated bureaucracy on a regular basis, has in effect allowed the unimpeded cancerous growth of the executive branch, much to our nation's harm. This is most of what I referred to in my earlier post.
I agree that its unfortunate but it has been a politicized process for decades (ex: Clarence Thomas). Furthermore, the four liberal judges on the SCOTUS vote in complete ideological lockstep with no regard for the Constitution. You had to expect that conservatives would fight back and fight dirty to prevent that 5th liberal judge no matter what it took.
For years, liberals have been making the weak argument that "Bush did it, so it's okay for Obama to do it". Quite appropriately, conservatives called liberals on it. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and conservatives are making the same BS argument that liberals were making. The saddest part is that I don't find it even a tiny bit surprising. Nauseating, but not surprising.
You guys miss the big picture. Executive orders are not the way to go because the next president, if of different mind, will easily overturn the executive order with...an executive order. The real problem is the abdication of duty by the Congress. The U.S. Constitution framers sagely set up the checks and balances to mandate compromise. If the Congress weren't ruled by zealots from (mainly) the Tea Party, they would do their job and compromise with the other side, and the president would sign the various pieces of legislation. Nobody would get exactly what they want, but laws would be enacted, and they couldn't be simply dismissed by the next president's executive orders. Our democracy is threatened like never before by the non-compromising politicians that hold many national, state, and local offices, and I truly fear that this country's democracy will not survive. It's a really bad situation.
AH, Couldn't agree more. While "action" may speak louder than words, effective action speaks even louder. I fear that the method Trump is using to get the ball rolling is doing damage to the ability to get long term effective legislation through. He's creating so many enemies that he won't be able to get the votes necessary to get actual laws passed.
This isn't a correct analysis. There's nothing inherently wrong with executive orders when they're done to execute (hence the term "executive") the laws of the United States. They go wrong and lose their legitimacy when they undermine, aren't supported by, or go against the laws of the United States. Nevertheless the real problem is your contention that Congress has abdicated some duty. The purpose of the checks and balances is to keep one branch from asserting unchecked power. It does not create an affirmative duty to pass a specific piece of legislation just because the President wants it to. By contrast, the President DOES have an affirmative duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. It's in the Constitution, and it's in his oath of office. If he doesn't like the laws that are on the books, he can ask Congress to change them and use his bully pulpit to bring political pressure , but if they don't, he still has to execute the laws that Congress has already passed. If he doesn't do so, then he is the one who is in dereliction of his duties, not Congress. For example, consider the issue of immigration, which is where the biggest fights over executive orders took place. Obama wanted to pass an immigration reform bill that included a new pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants coupled with added border security, stronger employer verification rules and resources, and other less significant changes. The Senate passed the bill. The House decided not to take action. That happens to legislation going both directions all time, and it has been that way so long as bicameral legislatures have existed. It's not new. It's not a breach of any duty. It's not unethical. It's not a breach of tradition. It's not immoral. It's not failing to "do their jobs." In response, the Obama Administration instituted executive orders that essentially said, "we don't like the immigration laws, and because you won't change them to something we'd like better, we're not going to enforce the parts that we don't like." That actually is failing to do his job and actually is a breach of his duties. To be clear, I'm generally an advocate of compromise and think the House should have passed their own immigration bill, gone to conference, and tried to work something out. Maybe something would have come out of it, and maybe it wouldn't have, but they should have tried. However, if they don't, that's their prerogative, and if they don't, the President's job is still to faithfully execute the immigration laws that were on the books. By not doing so, he was in the wrong. They were not. I'll bring up the hypothetical that I raised in another thread. Suppose Trump argued that taxes are too high and asked Congress to cut the top rate to 28 percent. Suppose the House passed a tax reform bill cutting the rate to 28 percent but Senate Democrats filibustered the bill and killed it. Now suppose Trump issues an executive order to his IRS Commissioner and his Attorney General to "defer" civil and criminal actions against any taxpayer who paid enough taxes to satisfy a 28 percent top rate. Under your logic, Trump wouldn't be in the wrong and the uncompromising zealots on Capitol Hill would be "the problem" for not "doing their jobs." I don't know you well enough to judge. You might stay consistent with that, but most of the critics who came up with the logic you adopted are unprincipled, partisan hacks who would immediate flip-flip and start sanctimoniously talking about the constitutional powers and duties of Congress and the White House.
