Genius of the Constitution

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the genius of our Constitution can be
found in the separation of powers that has preserved our freedom for
225 years.

The American Founders recognized that what had gone so terribly wrong
in Europe was that the same organ of government that made the law also
enforced that law and adjudicated it. All the powers were in the same
hands. They wanted to protect their new Nation from such a fate.

So they divided the powers of government. Congress, and Congress
alone, makes the law. ``All legislative power herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States.''

You want many voices in that decisionmaking process. You want a
great, big, messy debate. That is the Congress.

Once that decision is made, it needs to be carried out by a single
will, a single branch, headed by one individual whom the Constitution
commands to ``take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'' One
person does not get to make the law in this Republic. The President is
called upon to enforce the law.

Fundamentally, that means he does not get to pick and choose which
laws he will enforce and which laws he will ignore. He does not get to
pick and choose who must obey the law and who gets to live above the
law. And he does not get to change laws or make laws by decree.

That is the difference between the American Republic that prides
itself on being a nation of laws and not of men and the European
despots of old who boasted that the law was in their mouths.

Mr. Speaker, last week the President asserted an entirely
unconstitutional power to nullify existing immigration law by ordering
the executive branch to simply ignore it. Further, he has ordered 34
million green cards to allow businesses to hire illegal immigrants,
despite Federal law that explicitly forbids their employment.

Throughout our Nation's history, executives have tested the limits of
their power, but this act crosses a very bright line. Fortunately, the
American Founders anticipated that some day a President might attempt
to subvert the Constitution in this manner, and they provided a variety
of defenses available to both the legislative and the judicial
branches.

The legislative branch has the power of the purse, but that power is
temporarily constrained by the partisan division between the House and
the Senate. Fortunately, the American people have acted to end that
division in January.

But I fear that any confrontation between the executive and the
legislative branches could ultimately end in stalemate. The third
branch of government, the judiciary, must be brought into this process.

Since our earliest days, the Supreme Court has guarded our Nation
from unconstitutional acts by both the legislative and executive
branches, and that role is desperately needed now. I believe there is
no substitute for Congress doing everything within its power to invoke
judicial intervention.

I cannot believe that even the most devoted liberals on the bench can
be comfortable with this brazen act of usurpation. Assuming the Court
stands with the Constitution, the President would have no choice but to
back down or face a catastrophic public and congressional backlash.

Whether we choose to recognize it, this is a full-fledged
constitutional crisis. If allowed to stand, this precedent renders
meaningless the separation of powers and the checks and balances that
comprise the fundamental architecture of our Constitution. If it
stands, every future President, Republican and Democrat, will cite it
as justification for lawmaking by decree.

The seizure of legislative authority by the executive is fatal to a
republic such as ours. Indeed, it was Julius Caesar's usurpation of the
Roman senate's legislative prerogatives that brought down the Roman
republic and began four centuries of dictatorship. Once the rule of one
man is established over the rule of law, it is a very difficult thing
to stop.

Unlike every law that is passed under our Constitution, the
Constitution itself has no penalties for those who break it. The reason
is that the Constitution was written to be self-enforcing, but that
only happens if the powers of government are evenly balanced. The
Founders relied on each branch acting to keep those powers in balance.
Now, in our time, that responsibility is ours.

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