Faithful Execution of the Law Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank the chairman for yielding me this time.

Madam Speaker, I have to tell you, listening to the other side, I don't know what world they are living in. We didn't have a hearing on the bill? I testified at the hearing; I don't think I made that up, I think that happened.

The idea that we are going to be reporting people's names and phone numbers for this bill--no. The Attorney General will go and say we have established a policy not to enforce ObamaCare mandates, for example. We have a situation now where these policies are illegal under the law. So if you actually looked up the law, they would be illegal, but the executive branch has taken the position that we are not going to enforce that for a couple of years, so there is a divergence between the law on the books and the law in action, and those are the types of instances, policy decisions not to enforce that will be done. That ultimately is what we are talking about here.

Some people want different policy outcomes one way or another, but the important part of this is we are talking about power and we are talking about authority. So in some of these instances, I don't agree with those ObamaCare mandates; I would like to get them off the books, and so policywise I agree with that, but as a matter of authority, the President cannot simply suspend that law that was enacted. That ultimately is what we are talking about, clarity and how the government is operating.

Ultimately, the power resides with the American people, not with Members of Congress or with the President. The people own power under the Constitution, and then we exercise that authority consistent with the power that they have delegated to us. We have the authority under article I of the Constitution to legislate, and we have the exclusive authority to legislate.

The President has the duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. He does not have authority delegated him to amend, suspend, or change duly enacted laws, and this is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system, that there are separated powers and checks and balances.

George Washington, in his farewell address, admonished the Nation that to preserve these checks must be as necessary as to institute them.

The problem that I keep running into is, if I don't know what the limiting principle in some of these things is, if you can suspend the ObamaCare insurance mandate and you can suspend the business mandate and you can suspend the individual mandate, can a Republican President come in and just suspend the whole shebang? If not, why not? What is the difference?

Make no mistake about it, when there is a Republican President, there is going to be pressure on that President to suspend provisions of law that those voters who elected that individual don't like. If we start going back and forth where one side enforces what they like and the other side enforces what they like, then you don't really have a legislative body passing laws. We are essentially passing suggestions, and then it is ultimately the Executive who determines what will be enforced and what will not be enforced. That is not a road, I think, we want to go down.

The good thing about this bill is it is just saying put your cards on the table. If you are going to not enforce certain provisions of law, then report it to Congress and let us know about that.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman.

Mr. DeSANTIS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

So put your cards on the table. We should not in Congress have to rely on a leak to the press or find a blog post or look in some footnote in some unrelated Federal rule to know whether some of these things are being suspended, and the American people deserve to know whether or not their laws are being enforced.

So at the end of the day, this is really a transparency provision. It has worked with, in terms of the constitutional questions--Attorneys General Gonzalez, Mukasey, and Holder have reported to the Congress when the Federal Government has adopted policies of nonenforcement due to constitutional concerns.

So this says if you are going to take the position that as a matter of policy you are not going to enforce clear mandates in law, then provide that to us, offer your justification so we can evaluate it.

Ultimately, I think it is now just common parlance in the press here that a lot of these ObamaCare delays are done to help Democrats in the midterm elections, that maybe they won't lose as many seats if you can do that. Well, this is stuff that I think the American people need to know. That is a completely unacceptable reason to suspend laws.

So ultimately, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

The only way it could potentially be burdensome is if their people throughout the bureaucracy are instituting nonenforcement policies left and right. The average Federal official does not have the authority to decide to institute a policy of nonenforcement. They may be able to institute discretion on a case-by-case basis. I was a prosecutor, I couldn't just decide not to enforce drug laws anymore, so some of this stuff is a red herring.

I thank the chairman for yielding me the time, and I thank the chairman of the full committee for offering this bill. I urge my colleagues to support it

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