[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17400-17401]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the constitutional issues involving the 
President's executive orders on amnesty far transcend the issue of 
illegal immigration. The President's action strikes at the very heart 
of our separation of powers. The Constitution reserves to Congress 
alone the power to enact and alter law, and it charges the President 
with the responsibility to faithfully execute those laws.
  If the President can seize legislative power in this manner and then 
boast to an audience that he, himself, has changed the law, then the 
separation of powers becomes meaningless, and our constitutional 
Republic will have crossed a very bright line that separates a nation 
of laws from the unhappy societies where rulers boast that the ``law is 
in their mouths.''
  If this precedent stands, every succeeding President, Republican and 
Democrat, will cite it as authority to make or alter law by decree. 
This cannot be allowed to happen.
  The question occurs: What can the House do?
  Well, it took its first step last week by passing H.R. 5759 that 
declares the President's action unconstitutional and null and void. 
This was a symbolic act since the bill is subject to Presidential veto, 
but it was a warning that the President should have heeded. Obviously, 
he has not.
  What else can the Congress do?
  One of the fundamental checks held by Congress is the power of 
appropriation. It can close the purse by forbidding the use of Federal 
funds to proceed with this unconstitutional act.
  I realize that is a very difficult thing to do with a dysfunctional 
Senate, but a temporary funding measure into January or February would 
protect us against the prospect of a government shutdown while we try 
to engage the Senate to rise in defense of the Constitution. And if the 
Democratic Senate will not defend our Constitution, and I am afraid 
that is a strong possibility, a few weeks from now the Republican 
Senate certainly will.
  Why in the world would we want to lock in Federal spending through 
next September that reflects the priorities of the Democratic Senate 
that voters just thoroughly repudiated last month? Why in the world 
would we want to so greatly weaken our position to insist on the 
complete defunding of the President's unconstitutional act in the next 
congressional session just 3 weeks hence?
  Meanwhile, it is imperative that the House take every action 
available to engage the Supreme Court to resolve this constitutional 
crisis. Several States have already filed suit, and the House needs to 
join them. In addition, the House needs to vote as an institution to 
challenge this act directly. This is too important to be treated as an 
afterthought on current litigation over ObamaCare. It needs to be voted 
on separately, unequivocally, and now.
  Since the earliest days of our Republic, the Supreme Court has 
invalidated legislative acts that conflicted with the Constitution. Now 
it must be called upon to invalidate an executive act that strikes at 
the very core of our Constitution. Regardless of the ideologies of 
individual Justices, I cannot believe that any of them would sit idly 
by as the Executive seizes such fundamental powers from the legislative 
branch.
  On behalf of the House, the Speaker announced last month that we 
would fight this act tooth and nail. To adjourn tomorrow, having taken 
only a symbolic vote, while abandoning our actual powers to challenge 
this act undermines the credibility of the House majority.
  Elements on the extreme left argue that this act was justified due to 
congressional inaction over immigration reform. They fault the House 
for not

[[Page 17401]]

adopting a Senate immigration measure, but they forget the House passed 
a strong immigration bill this summer and the Senate refused to 
consider it.
  Since when has congressional disagreement over legislation been 
license for the President to legislate himself? This argument abandons 
the Constitution and the rule of law for the expediency of one-man 
rule. We should recognize such arguments for what they are: the 
authoritarianism of the extreme left. We should reject these arguments 
and those who make them.
  Mr. Speaker, the Roman Republic died when Julius Caesar seized the 
legislative authority of the Roman Senate. Repeated acts of usurpation 
went unchallenged until the constitutional structure of the Republic 
simply disintegrated.
  Let that not be the epitaph of the American Republic. Of this crisis, 
let history record that men and women of good will on both sides of the 
aisle joined together to defend the Constitution that they swore to 
uphold, and that this generation passed that Constitution and all of 
the freedoms it has preserved, intact and inviolate, to the many 
generations of Americans who followed.

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