Three Ways Obama’s Executive Orders are the Worst of Any President
5th February 2014
There are three basic ways in which Obama’s behavior exceeds that of any his predecessors.
The first is that Obama is using executive orders and actions to alter his own legislation. It’s one thing to claim that you are forced to act because Congress will not. It’s quite another thing to re-write the law after Congress has done what you asked–and after you have offered, time and time again, to entertain formal amendments to the legislation. Obama has simply invoked executive authority to cover up his own errors. That’s unprecedented.
The second way in which Obama’s abuse of executive power is different is that he has done it to prevent the legislature from acting. It is now widely acknowledged that the president issued his “Dream Act by fiat” in 2012 not just because Congress wouldn’t pass his version of immigration reform, but to outflank Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was preparing his own version, embarrassing Obama among Latino voters. Such pettiness is rare.
The third way in which Obama’s behavior is unusual is that he commands sweeping executive power on some issues while arguing, on other issues, that he has no power to act. The president’s recent speech about the NSA surveillance programs is a prime example of such self-contradiction. There is no constitutional doctrine behind the president’s executive orders, actions, and omissions: there is just pure, cynical political expediency.