Faithful Executive of the Law Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this burdensome and unnecessary piece of legislation.

We all know this is a message bill, a one-House bill that is not going anywhere in the Senate and is intended only as political propaganda against the President. It is a sham, and we all know it. In fact, we have come to expect it.

Never mind that there are real problems facing the American people that we can and should be working on, like raising the minimum wage, reforming our broken immigration system, creating jobs, extending unemployment insurance.

I guess it's not enough for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to ignore America's real problems. They have to waste time on invented problems that don't really exist.

That brings us to the bill before us today. This bill would require the Attorney General to report to Congress any instance when any Federal officer establishes a policy to refrain from enforcing, applying, or administering any Federal law, as well as to state the grounds underlying such a nonenforcement policy.

It expands the current law, which requires the Attorney General to report instances when he determines not to enforce the law because he believes that law to be unconstitutional. This new burdensome mandate would not only result in confusion and drain already-limited law enforcement resources, but would present separation-of-powers concerns as to its constitutionality.

The bill would require the Attorney General to oversee every single Federal officer, every U.S. attorney, every deputy U.S. attorney, every agent of any Federal agency, thousands of people, and would require him to determine in every instance when they prioritize enforcement of some classes of cases over others whether such exercises of discretion constitute a ``policy'' of nonenforcement. What a complete mess. Millions of decisions every year. Talk about your bureaucratic nightmare, not to mention your waste of taxpayers' dollars.

What is even worse is this bill is a thoroughly flawed solution in search of an imaginary problem. Over the course of two oversight hearings on the topic, the bill's supporters have failed to identify a single example of the President really failing to ``faithfully execute'' the law.

It is clear that they have confused constitutional violations with the President's legitimate exercise of enforcement discretion, which is not only well within his authority, but is in fact required by the Constitution's Take Care Clause.

Whether it be increasing the minimum wage with Federal contractors, which he is allowed to do; allowing the DREAMers to stay in the country by deferred deportation orders, for which there is much precedent; or even delaying implementation of certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, all of these actions are well within the President's legal authority. Of course the President has the authority to set guidelines for Federal contractors or to prioritize immigration enforcement dollars away from deporting children. Even when it comes to delaying deadlines of provisions in the Affordable Care Act, his goal was not to undermine the law. It was the exact opposite--to ensure that the law continues to work well for the millions of Americans who are benefiting from it: the children under age 26 who can remain on their parents' policies, those with preexisting conditions who can get insurance, women and seniors benefiting from increased preventive care services, of course the millions of previously uninsured who now have health insurance.

So, Madam Speaker, I hope my colleagues will be content with their message bill based on half-truths, completely unworkable technically, and completely without any benefit to the millions of Americans who want more from Congress than silly messages.

Americans want results. They want higher wages, a better immigration system, and affordable health care. I guess the Republicans are content to have them wait and to try to entertain them with silly nonsense. It is really sad. I hope we can get down to dealing with serious issues in this Congress.

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