[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 146 (Wednesday, December 3, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H8276]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GENIUS OF THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the genius of our Constitution can be 
found in the separation of powers that has preserved our freedom for 
225 years.
  The American Founders recognized that what had gone so terribly wrong 
in Europe was that the same organ of government that made the law also 
enforced that law and adjudicated it. All the powers were in the same 
hands. They wanted to protect their new Nation from such a fate.
  So they divided the powers of government. Congress, and Congress 
alone, makes the law. ``All legislative power herein granted shall be 
vested in a Congress of the United States.''
  You want many voices in that decisionmaking process. You want a 
great, big, messy debate. That is the Congress.
  Once that decision is made, it needs to be carried out by a single 
will, a single branch, headed by one individual whom the Constitution 
commands to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' One 
person does not get to make the law in this Republic. The President is 
called upon to enforce the law.
  Fundamentally, that means he does not get to pick and choose which 
laws he will enforce and which laws he will ignore. He does not get to 
pick and choose who must obey the law and who gets to live above the 
law. And he does not get to change laws or make laws by decree.
  That is the difference between the American Republic that prides 
itself on being a nation of laws and not of men and the European 
despots of old who boasted that the law was in their mouths.
  Mr. Speaker, last week the President asserted an entirely 
unconstitutional power to nullify existing immigration law by ordering 
the executive branch to simply ignore it. Further, he has ordered 34 
million green cards to allow businesses to hire illegal immigrants, 
despite Federal law that explicitly forbids their employment.
  Throughout our Nation's history, executives have tested the limits of 
their power, but this act crosses a very bright line. Fortunately, the 
American Founders anticipated that some day a President might attempt 
to subvert the Constitution in this manner, and they provided a variety 
of defenses available to both the legislative and the judicial 
branches.
  The legislative branch has the power of the purse, but that power is 
temporarily constrained by the partisan division between the House and 
the Senate. Fortunately, the American people have acted to end that 
division in January.
  But I fear that any confrontation between the executive and the 
legislative branches could ultimately end in stalemate. The third 
branch of government, the judiciary, must be brought into this process.
  Since our earliest days, the Supreme Court has guarded our Nation 
from unconstitutional acts by both the legislative and executive 
branches, and that role is desperately needed now. I believe there is 
no substitute for Congress doing everything within its power to invoke 
judicial intervention.
  I cannot believe that even the most devoted liberals on the bench can 
be comfortable with this brazen act of usurpation. Assuming the Court 
stands with the Constitution, the President would have no choice but to 
back down or face a catastrophic public and congressional backlash.
  Whether we choose to recognize it, this is a full-fledged 
constitutional crisis. If allowed to stand, this precedent renders 
meaningless the separation of powers and the checks and balances that 
comprise the fundamental architecture of our Constitution. If it 
stands, every future President, Republican and Democrat, will cite it 
as justification for lawmaking by decree.
  The seizure of legislative authority by the executive is fatal to a 
republic such as ours. Indeed, it was Julius Caesar's usurpation of the 
Roman senate's legislative prerogatives that brought down the Roman 
republic and began four centuries of dictatorship. Once the rule of one 
man is established over the rule of law, it is a very difficult thing 
to stop.
  Unlike every law that is passed under our Constitution, the 
Constitution itself has no penalties for those who break it. The reason 
is that the Constitution was written to be self-enforcing, but that 
only happens if the powers of government are evenly balanced. The 
Founders relied on each branch acting to keep those powers in balance. 
Now, in our time, that responsibility is ours.

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