Executive Orders

The president’s power is bound by the Constitution, which places all law-making power in Congress.

Assuming power is one of the biggest dangers in a Republic. Madison and Hamilton said in Federalist Paper (FP) 20, reflecting on world experience, “Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power … than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.”

Congress is not designed to express the president’s will. It is designed to be the field of exchanging ideas that come from the people. Moreover, Congress is a representative body of the people, not parties.

So what if the Republican Party has internal division? This only means that there is a shift taking place among the people regarding priorities of policy.

That the president should act on his own will if Congress doesn’t is absurd and violates the purpose of having three branches of government.

The president’s job is not to execute his will for the nation. His job is to execute the will of the nation decided through Congress.

Madison also said in FP 47, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

If you want a king in America, you will need a new constitution. Don’t violate the one we have.

The current session of Congress has been the least productive in our history.

This at a time when we are struggling to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression and are wrestling with increasingly pernicious immigration and cyber security problems. Unfortunately, rather than serving as a counter-balancing party of loyal opposition, the Republican Party has allowed itself to become consumed with its own internal battles and has devolved into a party of naysaying and obstructionism.

The president would be shirking his responsibility if he did not use the tool of executive orders to overcome this obstruction and inertia.

It is his right and his obligation to do so.

Every president since Washington has done so – sometimes on issues small, sometimes on large ones. F.D.R. gave Great Britain U.S. Navy destroyers in exchange for the ability to use British military bases.

Kennedy desegregated federally financed public housing. At the time, the need was clear; political consensus was not. Action was needed; appropriate action was taken.

Executive orders should be used judiciously, after serious negotiation has failed and the consequences of their use have been carefully considered.

To have the power and the clear need, without using it, would be an abrogation of responsibility. May the president have both the courage, and the restraint, to wield this power wisely.