[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 157 (Tuesday, November 9, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11845-H11846]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TIME FOR CONGRESS TO CLARIFY SCOPE OF EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, there has been increasing controversy over 
executive orders and presidential proclamations since President 
Franklin Roosevelt's administration. The recent comments of President 
Clinton's aide, John Podesta, in U.S. News and World Report, give us 
even more reason to be concerned. Mr. Podesta, in a moment of explicit 
candor, outlines the President's plan to issue a whole series of 
executive orders and changes to Federal rules without consulting 
Congress.
  Mr. Podesta goes further, saying, ``There is a pretty wide sweep of 
things we're looking to do and we're going to be very aggressive in 
pursuing it.'' That is the Podesta Plan.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here today to issue a dire warning. There is a 
``culture of deference'' in this Congress, and if we do not address 
this issue of executive lawmaking, it is a violation of our own oath of 
office. I am most deeply concerned about the Podesta Plan, to use 
executive orders and other presidential directives to implement the 
President's agenda without the consent of Congress. Executive lawmaking 
is a violation of the Constitution. Article I states that all 
legislative powers shall be vested in the Congress.
  Sadly, Congress should not be surprised that this President's 
frustrated staff is trying to bypass Congress. We have seen this 
before. When the President issued his executive order on striker 
replacements, he attempted to do what had been denied him by the legal 
legislative process. The same was true when the President issued his 
proclamation establishing a national monument in Utah, a sovereign 
State.
  Mr. Speaker, the framers expected national policy to be the result of 
open and full debate, hammered out by the legislative and executive 
branches. They believed in careful deliberation, conducted in a 
representative assembly, subject to all the checks and balances that 
characterize our constitutional system. Having broken with England in 
1776, the founders rejected government by monarchy and one-man rule. 
Nowhere in the Constitution is the President specifically given the 
authority to issue these directives.
  In the legislative veto decision of 1983, INS v. Chadha, the Supreme 
Court insisted that congressional power be exercised ``in accord with a 
single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure.'' The 
Court said that the records of the Philadelphia Convention and the 
State ratification debates provide ``unmistakable expression of a 
determination that legislation by the national Congress be a step-by-
step, deliberate and deliberative process.''
  If Congress is required to follow this rigorous process, how absurd 
it is to argue that a President can accomplish the same result by 
unilaterally issuing an executive order. Of course he cannot. The 
President's controversial use of presidential directives skirt the 
constitutional process, offend the values

[[Page H11846]]

announced by the Court in the legislative veto case, and do serious 
damage to our commitment to representative government and the rule of 
law.
  It is time to clarify the scope of executive authority vested in the 
presidency by article II of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has 
failed to address this issue and it is time for Congress to invoke the 
powerful weapons at its command. Through its ability to authorize 
programs and appropriate funds, Congress must now define and limit 
presidential power.
  This is the danger: The road to tyranny does not begin by egregious 
usurpations, but by those which appear logical; meant to gain public 
support. We must not be lulled into complacency, because later they 
will be aimed directly at our fundamental liberties and at our 
representative self-government.
  My colleagues, eternal vigilance is still the price of liberty.

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