[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12268-12272]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          SEPARATION OF POWERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall) is recognized 
for 55 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I have a festival of charts with me, not 
because they are pretty, not because they are attractive, but because I 
have something very important I want to talk about today, and I just 
can't do it without the direct quotes. I want to talk about the 
separation of powers.
  If you will remember the conversation that the gentleman from 
Massachusetts had--he was down here on the floor with the gentleman 
from North Carolina--they were talking about constitutional powers. 
They were talking about what we need to do in this body to fulfill our 
constitutional powers. It is hard. I don't envy them at all, Mr. 
Speaker. I come down here, and folks at home always ask about this time 
at the end of the day.
  They say, What goes on in that time?
  I say, Well, they yield time for long periods, about an hour at a 
time. They will yield Members time to come down here and debate the 
issues of their choice, but your job of sitting there as the impartial 
observer while anybody says ``goodness knows what'' down here on the 
House floor is a hard, hard job--a hard job.
  I didn't want to come down here today and try to come up with 
something that was divisive, that would try to get you out of your 
chair, that would try to bring your gavel down on me. I wanted to come 
up with something today that would be something that we could agree on 
as a people.
  Now think about that.
  I don't know what your understanding is, Mr. Speaker, of who we are 
as a people. I was just visiting with some young constituents out in 
the hallway--ages 6, ages 8, ages 10. What does it mean to be an 
American? It is a set of ideas. It is a set of values. It is a set of 
principles. Now, most of those principles, I would argue, are contained 
in our United States Constitution. It is a pretty simple document. It 
lays out a vision, a vision that has governed this country well for 
over 200 years.
  Sadly--and I mean, sincerely, I do think it is sad--we have crafted a 
resolution up in the Rules Committee--and we just had a hearing on it 
this week--where we are suing the President of the United States over 
his adherence to the Constitution. Now, I take absolutely no pleasure 
in that. To be fair, as folks back in their offices know, Mr. Speaker, 
I am a hardcore Republican from the State of Georgia, but I take no 
pleasure in suing the President of the United States.
  I take no pleasure in it because I represent the article I United 
States Congress. It is not my power that is in my voting card. It is 
the power of 650,000 constituents back home in Georgia. It is the 
people's power that is represented in my voting card. I will tell you 
that, not just during the time you have been here in Congress, Mr. 
Speaker, and not just during the 3 years that I have been here in 
Congress, but for a long period of time, the people's power that is 
represented here in this institution has been slipping and sliding 
right down Pennsylvania Avenue, behind me, and accumulating in the 
United States White House. Administrations, both Republicans and 
Democrats, have been taking one fiber of freedom--one fiber of power at 
a time--from the people, taking it from the Congress and amassing it 
down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
  The reason I say I take no pleasure in the lawsuit, Mr. Speaker, is 
that I don't want to have to go across the street to the Supreme Court 
and ask a coequal branch of government--those article III courts--to 
return to me the people's power that I lost. I should have never lost 
it to begin with. Now, I wasn't here in Congress when so much of that 
was going on, Mr. Speaker. You know it has only been 3 years that I 
have had a voting card, but I feel responsible. Here is what the 
resolution says:

       Resolve: that the Speaker--the Speaker of the House--may 
     initiate or intervene in one or more civil actions on behalf 
     of the U.S. House of Representatives in Federal court.

  It is saying that we have experienced institutional harm in article 
I. In article I in the House, we have experienced institutional harm. 
It authorizes the Speaker to file suit not on his behalf but on our 
behalf. He is not the Speaker of the Republicans. He is not the Speaker 
of the Democrats. He is the Speaker of the whole House. It is to file 
suit on our behalf, and it is a suit on the implementation of the 
Affordable Care Act.
  I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. If you have not had a 
chance to see this resolution, you are thinking, Oh, boy. Here go those 
Republicans again. They are just filing one more lawsuit to try to stop 
the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Not true. Not true. This 
is a lawsuit to require the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
  I want you to think about that. That is why we are in this 
constitutional crisis.
  I didn't want the Affordable Care Act. I wasn't here at the time. I 
didn't have a chance to vote for it. I knew I wasn't going to be able 
to keep my doctor. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep my 
insurance policy. I knew that, if we wanted to take care of the needs 
of the uninsured, there were better ways, but I didn't get a chance to 
vote. I wasn't here. The Senate passed it. It got jammed through the 
House. The President signed it. It turns out it didn't quite work the 
way the President wanted it to.
  So what does he do? He started to implement some of it, and decided 
not to implement other parts of it.
  You don't get to do that.
  We have an article I Congress. We pass the law. The President gets to 
sign it or veto it. The courts decide whether or not it is 
constitutional. Presidents don't get to decide which laws they like, 
which laws they don't like, which lines they want to implement, which 
lines they don't. So this is a lawsuit to require the President to 
follow the law that he signed.
  I wish we would repeal the law. It turns out--and it has been said 
many times by leaders in this country--that the best way to do away 
with a bad law is to require its aggressive enforcement. I want you to 
think about that. The best way to end a bad law is to require its 
strict enforcement because then the people will make that decision.
  I don't mean to pick on the President. Again, the President has a 
hard job. I was with my mom on Mother's Day at church, Mr. Speaker.
  Someone came up, and said, Oh, Ms. Woodall, we just love your son. We 
hope he will think about running for the White House one day.
  My mom looked him in the eye, and said, That is a terrible thing to 
say about my son.

[[Page 12269]]

  And it is. It is just awful. It is an awful job, and I am glad we 
have men and women who are willing to pursue it, but it must be 
pursued, not as an all powerful executive, but as a caretaker of the 
constitutional responsibilities invested in that position by article II 
of our Constitution. Not more than 30 days ago the Supreme Court ruled 
on that.
  This is what I want you to understand, Mr. Speaker. I know you 
followed the Noel Canning decision, but what the Supreme Court said in 
a case called Noel Canning v. NLRB not more than 30 days ago--and just 
to digress for a moment, Mr. Speaker, you have looked at that Court, 
haven't you? I mean, there are some hardcore, rock-ribbed conservatives 
on that Court, and there are some fringe liberals on that Court, too. I 
suppose, if I were in the other category, I would say there were fringe 
conservatives and some rock-ribbed liberals. Yet what I am saying is 
that they don't agree on much in that Chamber. You see it over and over 
and over again the decisions that come out of there. It is that five of 
them believe this and that four of them believe that. It is a divided 
Court, a divided opinion, but not so when it comes to the United States 
Constitution in this Noel Canning case.
  In the Noel Canning case, the Court ruled 9-0--the Court ruled 
unanimously, Mr. Speaker--that the President of the United States 
exceeded his constitutional authority in making appointments to 
positions without consulting the United States Senate. The President 
made appointments to positions that the Constitution requires that the 
Senate approve, that the Democratic Senate approve. He made those 
appointments without Senate approval. He said he thought he could do 
it. He said it was the right thing to do. He said the ends justified 
the means. The Supreme Court said, 9-0, no, he can't do it. The 
Constitution doesn't allow it.
  But that is not the point, Mr. Speaker.
  The point is that that happened 2 years ago. The President made these 
appointments 2 years ago, and you have not heard one peep out of that 
United States Senate. This wasn't a lawsuit that the Senate brought to 
say, Wait a minute, Mr. President. You are stealing the power of the 
people out from under article I on Capitol Hill. This wasn't a Senate 
lawsuit. This was a private sector lawsuit. This was just some company 
out there across America that said, I have been disadvantaged because 
the Constitution has been breached, and I am seeking relief from the 
United States Supreme Court. The Senate did not stand up when the 
President stole their power.

                              {time}  1445

  The only way our system of government works, Mr. Speaker, is when we 
stand up for the people to preserve their power here in this 
institution.
  This is what the Court said, and I just so identify with this. They 
said the Recess Appointments Clause--that is what we are talking about.
  That was where the President said: I am going to make these 
appointments because the Senate is not in session. The Senate said: 
yes, I am in session. The President said: no, you are not, you are 
mistaken, I am going to make these appointments.
  Anyway, the Supreme Court said the Recess Appointments Clause is not 
designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It simply provides 
a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is away 
during a recess.
  Here is the money line, Mr. Speaker: ``Here, as in other contexts, 
friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our 
constitutional structure.''
  I happen to have a copy of the Constitution right here, Mr. Speaker. 
Friction, the Supreme Court says, is ``an inevitable consequence of our 
constitutional structure.'' If you don't like friction, you need to 
rewrite your Constitution because the Constitution creates this 
friction to create that balance between the article I Congress, the 
article II executive, the article III courts.
  This is not news to the President of the United States, Mr. Speaker. 
In fact, it is not news to the country at all.
  This is George Washington's farewell address. It was 1796, Mr. 
Speaker, 1796. This is our unwilling President. President Washington 
didn't want to be our first President. He was drafted to do the job.
  Turns out, some of the best Presidents are the ones who don't want 
the job, but who have it thrust upon them by the circumstances of 
history.
  President Washington says this--farewell address, 1796, he said:

       It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a 
     free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with 
     its administration, to confine themselves within their 
     respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise 
     of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.

  President George Washington, having fought that Revolutionary War, 
having given us the benefit that no other nation on the planet had, of 
self-governance, having been drafted into service after the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787 to serve as the first President of 
the United States--in his parting words, in the final wisdom that he 
tries to pass on to preserve this fledgling Nation that he pledged his 
life and his fortune to create, he said, it is important, in the habits 
of thinking in a free country, that those habits should inspire caution 
in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within 
their respective constitutional spheres.
  I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker, where we are today, 
where the Supreme Court is ruling unanimously that this President of 
the United States has overstepped his constitutional bounds, where the 
House of Representatives is considering a lawsuit against the President 
of the United States for even more overreaching of his constitutional 
authority.
  From the very beginning of this Nation, our leaders knew that the 
Nation's success depended on confining each branch of government to its 
respective constitutional sphere.
  Now, I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. You are thinking that 
was 1797, things change.
  Well, let's take a look and see. Here is a quote from Senator Barack 
Obama, 2007. Senator Barack Obama, 2007, says this--he says: I was a 
constitutional law professor, which means, unlike the current 
President, I actually respect the Constitution.
  That is pretty powerful. Now, in fairness, there were Presidential 
campaigns beginning then. People sometimes say inflammatory things 
during campaigns that they later regret saying, but then-Senator Barack 
Obama said: This current President, George Bush, he doesn't respect the 
Constitution. Maybe he doesn't understand it; but I, President Obama, 
said--then-Senator Obama said: I am a constitutional professor. I 
understand it. I get it, and I respect it.
  Not so, says the Supreme Court this summer, 9-0, that the President 
overstepped his constitutional bounds. I know what you are thinking, 
Mr. Speaker. You are saying you have been around this town for a short 
period of time, and you know how people game these quotes. They go out 
and they pull the most awful quote out, and they pretend that that 
represents someone's entire body of thought.
  Well, I have gone much further. Here, again, Senator Barack Obama, 
2007: These last few years, we have seen an unacceptable abuse of power 
here at home in America.
  He said: We have paid a heavy price for having a President whose 
priority is expanding his own power. The constitution is treated like a 
nuisance.
  I want to think about that, Mr. Speaker, because I want to come back 
to that.
  Then-Senator Barack Obama, observing what happened in the Bush 
administration, says: We have paid a heavy price for having a President 
whose priority is expanding his own power. The Constitution is treated 
like a nuisance.
  Now, what I hope the take-home message is, Mr. Speaker, that you will 
share with your constituents back home, that I certainly share with 
mine, is we have just had a debate over constitutional responsibility 
on the floor of the House, where both our Democratic friend from 
Massachusetts and

[[Page 12270]]

our Republican friend from North Carolina both agreed that we need to 
stand up more for our article I powers.
  I want to associate myself with the comments of Senator Barack Obama 
in 2007. Had Republicans done a better job--and, again, I wasn't in 
Congress at the time. You weren't in Congress at the time, Mr. 
Speaker--had Republicans done a better job reining in the overreach of 
then-President Bush, we wouldn't be having so many of these 
conversations today.
  Something very destructive is happening in this country, very 
destructive, where Republicans prioritize protecting Republicans in the 
White House more than they prioritize protecting the Constitution, 
where Democrats prioritize protecting the Democrats in the White House 
more than they prioritize protecting the Constitution.
  I don't know how that happened. We had giants in this institution, 
Mr. Speaker, on both sides of the aisle--both sides of the aisle.
  Robert Byrd from West Virginia always comes to mind. I couldn't agree 
with him on many policy issues, but, boy, did I love his affection for 
the United States of America. Man alive, did I admire his commitment to 
the Constitution.
  The thing of it is, Mr. Speaker, if we don't stand up for it, no one 
else will. President Obama said he was going to stand up for it. He 
said we had paid a heavy price under President Bush for treating the 
Constitution as a nuisance.
  Let me go a little more current. President Obama, at a press 
conference, August 13 of 2013, he is talking about the Affordable Care 
Act. He is talking about that bill on which the House is getting ready 
to file a lawsuit.
  This is exactly what he said: In a normal political environment--
President Obama said--it would have been easier for me to simply call 
up the Speaker and say, you know what? This is a tweak that doesn't go 
to the essence of the law.
  He is talking about delaying the employer mandate. He is talking 
about taking that part of the law that says this must happen by this 
date and deciding it is not going to happen by that date. In fact, it 
might not happen at all, but it is certainly not going to happen this 
year.
  He says, ordinarily, he would have just called up the Speaker and 
said, We need to tweak this. He says, Let's make a technical change to 
the law, would be what he would ordinarily tell the Speaker. He said 
that would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do, but we are 
not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to ObamaCare.
  We had the executive authority to do what we did, and so we did so.
  Our President who, as a Senator, recognized the erosion of power from 
article I, our President who, as a Senator, wanted to rein in what 
George Bush was doing--in fact, accused George Bush of considering the 
Constitution a nuisance, our President, when then a Senator, said he 
was a constitutional law professor, he understood the nuances of the 
Constitution.
  When he became President, Mr. Speaker, he said: you know what? I 
understand that what is supposed to happen is that I am supposed to go 
to Capitol Hill, I am supposed to talk to the Speaker, and I am 
supposed to get the law changed--but these aren't ordinary times. These 
aren't times like last year or 2 years ago or 10 years ago or 200 years 
ago. These are special times, and in these special times, I am just 
going to do it myself from the White House.
  Incredibly dangerous, incredibly dangerous--he could be right, he 
could be 100 percent right about what he wants to do, but the way he 
wants to do it is 100 percent wrong.
  Don't believe me, listen to the Supreme Court, which said, 9-0, 
unanimously, the President has overstepped his bounds.
  Then-Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Speaker: I taught constitutional law 
for 10 years, I take the Constitution very seriously.
  This is 2008. There is a war ongoing. The economy is collapsing, 
America is in crisis, and this is what then-Senator Barack Obama says: 
The biggest problems that we are facing right now have to do with 
George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive 
branch and not go through Congress at all.
  I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker. 2008, in the midst of 
crisis in this country, a Presidential election year, where candidates 
are telling the American people who they are, what they believe, and 
what the American people can count on them to do if elected to office.
  Looking at that landscape of crisis in this country, President 
Obama--then-Senator Obama says: The biggest problem that we are facing 
right now has to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more 
power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all.
  Here is the money line, Mr. Speaker: That is what I intend to reverse 
when I am President of the United States of America.
  This body is getting ready to file a lawsuit, unprecedented, against 
the President of the United States for failure to stay within his 
constitutional lane.
  The lawsuits filed by the private sector are coming back from the 
Supreme Court, 9-0, that the President has exceeded his constitutional 
lane. He ran on a platform of Presidents are exceeding their 
constitutional lanes and it is destroying the country. It is among the 
biggest problems the Nation faces. He pledges to reform it.
  I would argue, Mr. Speaker, in the 40 years that I have been watching 
the governance of this Nation, I have never seen it any worse, but to 
be clear, I have seen it bad. I have seen it bad, and I have seen the 
failure of this House to stop it. I have seen the failure of the Senate 
to stop it.
  There is plenty of blame to go around. I am not interested in who to 
blame for it, I am interested in how to solve it, because here is the 
question that I think all the board of directors of America has to 
answer.
  Now, I gesture to this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, as if the board of 
directors live here. They do not. The board of directors of the United 
States of America lives at home in Peachtree Corners, Georgia; in 
Lawrenceville, Georgia; they live in Poughkeepsie; they live in L.A.; 
they live in New York; they live in Sioux City; they live in New 
Orleans; they live all across this land.
  The board of directors are those people with voter registration cards 
in their pocket. They are the ones who run this country. They are the 
ones to whom we are accountable.
  The President knows--he knew it when he was in the Senate, he knew 
when he began his campaign for office, he knew what George Washington 
told us in his farewell address, which was only a reverence for the 
division of powers crafted by the Constitution will allow our country 
to be strong.
  He knew it, he campaigned on it, and the pressures of the job--the 
pressures of this horrible, horrible job, I will tell you, that is 
President of the United States, have caused him to lose sight of that 
constitutional mooring; and we, the board of directors, must bring him 
back.
  Now, we are going to try to do it through a lawsuit here in the U.S. 
House. The private sector has already done it through multiple 
lawsuits, through the Supreme Court.
  The American people need to do it--not at the ballot box because this 
President will never seek election again. They need to do it through 
the court of public opinion.

                              {time}  1500

  Getting our goals accomplished is important. How we get those goals 
accomplished may be even more.
  Senator Barack Obama in 2008: One of the most important jobs of the 
Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the executive 
branch on the power of the other branches. And I think the Chief 
Justice has been a little bit too willing and eager to give the 
administration--then the Bush administration--whether it's mine or 
George Bush's, more power than I think the Constitution originally 
intended.
  Think about that, Mr. Speaker. Again, this is an election year. This 
is 2008. The President is running to be the President of the United 
States. He is

[[Page 12271]]

being asked about what that separation of powers means. He is being 
asked whether or not the Constitution matters. He is being asked, how 
do we continue this great experiment in self-governance that is the 
United States of America? And he says: One of the most important jobs 
of the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the 
executive branch on the power of the other branches.
  Mr. Speaker, I want you to listen to what is coming out of this White 
House when we talk about this lawsuit the House is considering filing. 
Is this what you hear? Is what you hear from President Barack Obama in 
2014 the same thing you heard from him as candidate-for-President 
Barack Obama in 2008?
  The most important job of the Supreme Court is to guard against the 
encroachment of the executive branch?
  That is all this House is asking the Court to decide.
  And we didn't choose a controversial issue, one that we might 
disagree with the President on, on whether or not it should be 
implemented. We chose his own health care bill to say: Mr. President, I 
know you are proud of this health care bill, and so let's do it. Let's 
implement it. Let's not pick and choose. Let's do the whole thing 
exactly the way you signed it, exactly the way the House and Senate 
passed it. Let's do it that way. You don't get to make those decisions 
on your own.
  The President knew that as a Senator. In fact, he criticizes the 
Supreme Court. In the same way that today, what I hear coming out of 
the White House is a criticism of the U.S. House for even going to the 
Court to try to chasten the President, when he was a Senator, he goes 
the other direction. He says: I think the Chief Justice has been a 
little bit too willing and eager to give the administration, whether 
it's mine or George Bush's, more power than I think the Constitution 
originally intended.
  There is a lot of pressure to get your agenda accomplished. It is not 
just a Capitol Hill thing. It is not a White House thing. It is a life 
thing. We have been talking about that since we were kids, Mr. Speaker.
  Do the ends justify the means? Does the process matter? I will tell 
you, if you have a broken process, you are going to end up with a 
broken product.
  We have an opportunity in this Chamber to do exactly what then-
Senator Obama asked us to do, which is to stand up for this division of 
power.
  Then-Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Speaker, on May 19, 2008, he says this 
about the division of power. He does understand it. At least in 2008, 
he got it. This is what he said. He said: Everybody's got their own 
role. Congress' job is to pass legislation, and the President can veto 
it or sign it. But what George Bush has been doing, as a part of his 
effort to accumulate more power in the Presidency, is he has been 
saying, Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching 
a letter that says I don't agree with this part or that part. He says: 
What President Bush is doing is saying, I am going to choose to 
interpret it this way or that way.
  But then-Senator Barack Obama goes on to say that is not part of the 
President's power. He says: This is part of the whole theory of George 
Bush, that he can make up the law as he goes along. Then-Senator Barack 
Obama says: I disagree with that.
  Mr. Speaker, it does not matter whether you are the most liberal 
Democrat in this country or the most conservative Republican or anybody 
in between. There is no question that there is picking and choosing 
going on in the implementation of laws in this country: I am going to 
enforce this law because I like it; I am going to ignore this law 
because I don't like it; I am going to change this law because I would 
like it better if only it had this instead of that.
  The lawsuit this institution is proposing is not to settle any kind 
of policy dispute; it is to settle a process dispute. It is to say, 
whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it passed the Senate; 
whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it passed the House; 
whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it was signed into 
law by the President of the United States and upheld by the Supreme 
Court; so let's enforce it. Let's enforce it. Let's do what it says. If 
it says these policies should be outlawed, let's outlaw them. You don't 
get to choose which ones you think should and shouldn't be outlawed. 
The law, itself, says outlaw them. No policy shall be sold after this 
date.
  If you believe that the protections of the Affordable Care Act--I 
don't call them protections. They have done more to destroy health 
insurance in my district than to protect the uninsured in my district. 
But if you believe those protections are important for America, 
implement those. Implement those.
  You saw the chaos that was caused in the individual market when that 
one set was implemented. No more deadlines have been implemented since 
that time.
  The President said: You know what? That wasn't quite what I had 
intended. It wasn't supposed to work out that way. He says: In ordinary 
times, I would have gone to the U.S. House of Representatives. I would 
have called the Speaker. I would have said let's work together to 
change the law. But these are not ordinary times, so I am going to 
change it myself, as the Executive of the United States.
  You won't find those powers in this Constitution, Mr. Speaker. You 
won't find them here. You will find a long history of Senators and 
House Members saying: Mr. President, you can't do that; you will find a 
long history of the Supreme Court saying: You can't do that; and you 
will find, in the case of this President in particular, because he had 
decades as a constitutional scholar, you will find speech after speech, 
you will find quote after quote, you will find article after article 
that say to the then-President of the United States, George Bush: Stay 
in your constitutional lane. Obey that simple document that is our 
United States Constitution. If you want something done, go to the 
Congress to get it done. Do not do it by yourself in the White House. 
Don't pick up your pen. Don't pick up your phone. Get in your car and 
drive down to the United States Congress.
  And every single time then-Senator Barack Obama said that, he was 
right. And there were far too few Republicans in this Chamber, far too 
few Republicans in the Senate who stood up and agreed with him.
  As Republicans, we had a war on our hands. The Nation was in crisis, 
a national security crisis. Terrorism was on our shores like we had 
never seen before. And we thought, you know what--and again, I wasn't 
here then. I can only imagine what was going on in this body. I can 
only imagine what those with voting cards were thinking. But I imagine 
they were thinking: I would hate to criticize my own President in these 
tough times for America. Maybe it would be better if I looked the other 
way. Maybe it would be better if I just turned my head just this once, 
irrespective of what the constitutional guidance requires.
  If that was the thought of any man or woman in this Chamber, if that 
was the thought of any man or woman in the United States Senate, they 
were 100 percent wrong. I get it. I get how they could feel that way, 
but they were 100 percent wrong. And if any man or woman in this 
Chamber or in the United States Senate is thinking today, I must 
protect my President from the strictures of the Constitution, they are 
wrong.
  The Constitution does not exist to protect the President. The 
Constitution exists to protect the people. The Constitution is not a 
document to make sure that government power is preserved. The 
Constitution is a document to make sure the people's power isn't 
abrogated. It is not easy.
  I hope folks liked to see the gentleman from Massachusetts and the 
gentleman from North Carolina, gentlemen who disagree on so much about 
policy in this Chamber, gentlemen from different parts of the country, 
gentlemen from different parties down here agreeing on the 
constitutional role of this House when it comes to sending our young 
men and women into harm's way. They were exactly right.

[[Page 12272]]

  We have to come together to do this, Mr. Speaker. And if we could 
come together to do this, a lawsuit wouldn't even be necessary.
  Again, we used to have giants. We used to have giants in this 
institution who put the country first and the party a distant, distant 
second or third or fourth. We have got to bring those traditions back.
  President Barack Obama, August 2013, an incredibly popular President 
sat for reelection, reelected to a second term by the American people. 
A constitutional scholar, having forewarned the American people for 
over a decade about the dangers of too much power involved in the 
executive branch, having warned the American people about the 
importance of including Congress, having told the Bush White House how 
absolute power cannot reside there, must have ideas originating from 
the U.S. House, says: In a normal political environment, it would have 
been easier for me to call the Speaker and say, You know what, let's 
tweak this legislation. That would be the normal thing, and that is 
what I would prefer to do, but I am not going to do it. We are not in a 
normal atmosphere around here, he says. I have executive authority, and 
I used it.
  The funny thing about the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, folks always 
talk about their constitutional rights. They always talk about their 
constitutional rights. Sometimes the rights they are talking about 
really are constitutional; sometimes they are not. But the funny thing 
about this Constitution is it allows the President to do anything he or 
she wants to do until somebody stands up and says no.
  The powers are in the Congress. The powers are in the courts. The 
Executive's role is to implement those rules, to implement those laws. 
But if no one stands up and says no, the largest branch in the country 
is the executive branch, and they continue to operate unfettered.
  We don't have an opportunity to say no. We have an obligation to say 
no. Not to say no to this President, but to say no to the Office of the 
President. When these powers slip away, these powers that don't belong 
to this Chamber but belong to the American people, when they slip away, 
they are hard to get back.
  We didn't have a revolution in this country because the executive 
wasn't powerful enough. We had a revolution in this country because the 
executive was all powerful, and we thought there was a better way.
  The President, speech after speech, article after article, thought 
there was a better way. But the power of that office, perhaps the 
burdens of that office, the responsibility of that office, have brought 
a 180-degree change in the President's view of the Constitution. We are 
back to where he identified George Bush as being 8 years ago, where the 
Constitution is treated as a nuisance.
  The Constitution is not a nuisance. The Constitution is the only 
thing standing between the American people and a complete seizure of 
their freedoms. This is that document.
  I am going to end where I began, Mr. Speaker, with the Noel Canning 
decision, 9-0. The Supreme Court says President Barack Obama had no 
constitutional authority to do what he did--no constitutional 
authority. And what the Court observes is friction between the branches 
is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional form of government.

                              {time}  1515

  We can absolutely do away with the friction. We can absolutely get 
things done. We can absolutely move all the obstacles out of the way. 
But that would not be America. That would not be our constitutional 
form of government.
  You cannot eliminate the friction without eliminating the 
Constitution. There is not a constituent in my district back home that 
would make that choice. We have to embrace the friction. We have to 
embrace the battles of ideas that is America, and we have to commit 
ourselves--even when it is inconvenient--to playing by the rules of the 
United States Constitution. It has protected our freedoms as a self-
governing people for 200 years, and it can do it for another 200 years 
if we don't lose track of our obligation to protect it today.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you for being down here with me today, and with 
that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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