Boehner’s unprincipled fight with Obama over separation of powers

[DonViejo]

By Jonathan Capehart July 7 at 2:34 PM

House Speaker John Boehner took to CNN.com yesterday to continue to tout his intention to sue President Obama for “[circumventing] the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws, and excusing himself from enforcing statutes he is sworn to uphold.” This notion that Obama is willfully lawless and exercising powers above and beyond the Constitution has me side-eyeing so hard right now.

Last month, I dealt with the president’s increasing reliance on executive orders to get around a recalcitrant Republican majority in the House and minority in the Senate to get anything done. Despite the hysteria from the right, Obama has issued fewer of them than any of his predecessors since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s, according to a study by John Hudak at Brookings. Now, it’s time to deal with signing statements, which is a legal way for the president to reinterpret or ignore the law he is signing if it conflicts with his view of executive authority. As you know, I’m not a fan of them. But they are hardly unconstitutional and Obama hasn’t abused their use in number.

Kevin Evans of Florida International University told The Post’s Karen DeYoung last month that President George W. Bush “used signing statements to challenge about 1,200 provisions of 172 laws he signed — twice as many as all his predecessors combined.” Meanwhile, Obama “has issued close to 30 signing statements; in the 2013 Defense Authorization Act alone, he challenged more than 20 sections of the law,” DeYoung reports. “Among the challenges have been assertions of his power to close Guantanamo Bay, for instance, and to disregard whistleblower protections.”

The DeYoung article points out that use of signing statements were “relatively rare until Ronald Reagan began using [them] as a means of asserting the power of the executive against the legislative branch.” Thanks to Tobias Gibson, a political science professor at Westminster College in Missouri writing at Monkey Cage, we know Samuel Alito is the reason.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/07/07/boehners-unprincipled-fight-with-obama-over-separation-of-powers/

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. republicans are trying to push that Obama is too strong for them

That's a bit silly. First Obama is too weak then too strong. Boehner is behaving like a spoiled brat when someone has taken his ball! Boehner should be made to look stupid (which he is).

[HooptieWagon]

2. Since Congress refuses to work...

... I'd say they've surrendered their power.