WHY YOU SHOULD LOBBY CONGRESS
Citizens may feel it is a waste of time to contact elected leaders, because their minds are made up already. But on most issues, legislators try hard to determine the desires and leanings of their constituency before they vote. Politicians worry about being re-elected, and know that the happier their constituency, the more likely their own re-election.
Contact Your Members Of Congress On This Issue!
Tell your members Of Congress That Its Time To End The Illegal Actions Of The Obama Admin & Other Government Agencies!
President Obama's aggressive use of administrative power is testing the boundaries of executive authority on several fronts.
Obama throughout his presidency has pushed the envelope on recess appointments, prosecutorial discretion and the way his administration executes laws, drawing resistance from the other two branches of government.
Experts say Obama's tactics are not unusual and note that he has issued fewer executive orders than many of his predecessors. But Congressional Republicans counter that it is the content, not the number, of presidential directives that has them up in arms.
“I think leadership is coming to the conclusion that they cannot sit idly by while the president makes this enormous power grab,” said Rep. Tom Rice, a South Carolina Republican urging the House to file a lawsuit over various executive actions. “He’s actually shredding the constitution.”
Obama has made clear his intent to use every tool at his disposal to further policy goals in lieu of action from a bitterly divided Congress, pledging in last month’s state of the union to use his “pen” wherever necessary.
In remarks Friday at House Democrats’ annual retreat, Obama said he would prefer to work with Congress than act unilaterally.
“But, I'm not going to wait, because there's too much to do,” he said. “And America does not believe in standing still.”
In recent days, Obama signed an executive order effectively raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors, while his administration extended additional legal rights to same sex couples and issued new banking guidelines for legal pot businesses, among other contentious actions.
“All modern presidents have done this,” said Kenneth Mayer, a University of Wisconsin political science professor who has studied the presidency extensively. “All presidents utilize the tools of executive power to implement policies.”
To be sure, Obama is not the first president to be accused of overstepping the bounds of his authority – a point emphasized Friday by White House press secretary Jay Carney, who said, “it is funny to hear Republicans get upset about the suggestion the president might use legally available authorities … when, obviously, they supported a president who used executive authorities quite widely.”
But the same point could be made in reverse. President George W. Bush faced an onslaught of criticism from Democrats in response to “signing statements” used to expound his administration’s interpretations of hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
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