June 11, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) president Bill Wilson reacted to reports that allies of Barack Obama are urging him to by-pass Congress and expand his executive authority to change the law through decree.
“This trial balloon from Durbin shows the complete disdain that the left has for our nation’s constitution, and the checks and balances that prevent an imperial presidency. Obama has already destroyed the advice and consent check on his power by placing three of his choices on the National Labor Relations Board without even going through the normal process of submitting them to the Senate, and now he is being urged to create law through executive order,” Wilson said.
The article in Washington, D.C. publication, Roll Call, quotes Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin as saying the White House is considering executive orders on issues that the elected members of Congress has not passed into law, including the DREAM Act. “The president needs to consider taking action by executive order when Congress will not respond to a major national challenge,” said Durbin.
The issues are thought to be important to mobilize important Democrat constituencies, including Hispanics and gays, who are deemed key to Obama’s re-election.
“Our nation teeters on a precipice with our very liberty in the balance, and Durbin’s call for Obama to impose his will on the people of the nation for nothing more than political gain is just one more assault on the social fabric that has protected our individual freedom,” Wilson said.
Previously, ALG’s Wilson has blasted several Obama executive orders and actions that he said were “lawless.”
Obama pretended a congressional recess into existence to make radical appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The Obama Federal Housing Finance Administration arbitrarily allowed Fannie and Freddie mortgages that are 25 percent higher than market value to be refinanced when the law placing the GSEs in conservatorship never allowed it.
Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation to force religious-based institutions to pay for contraception against their teachings in violation of the First Amendment.
His Justice Department took on the role of a court and declared the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional when its role is to defend the law whether it agrees with it or not.
When a federal judge in Florida struck down the entirety of Obamacare as unconstitutional, the Obama Administration continued to implement regulations pursuant to the law, not waiting for the judge to stay his decision.
His EPA arbitrarily declared carbon dioxide, a gas essential to life itself, to be a “harmful pollutant” covered under the Clean Air Act.
“This is how Obama does business. If he cannot get what he wants though the legislative process, he just issues a dictate. By failing to resist this siren song to grab more power, he is re-energizing those who oppose him to redouble their efforts to defeat him at the polls, lest Schoolhouse Rock’s famous ‘how a bill becomes law’ becomes obsolete forever,” Wilson concluded.
Americans for Limited Government is dedicated to rolling back government at all levels, and is a leading national free market advocacy group.
Attachments:
“Obama the Usurper,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, Feb. 10, 2012 at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/02/obama-the-usurper/
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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