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Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 4, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Federal, State and Local Relations Immigration

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, this question transcends the issue of illegal
immigration. The President's action has crossed a very bright line that
separates the American Republic, which prides itself on being a nation
of laws and not of men, from those unhappy regimes whose rulers boast
that the law is in their mouths.

It is true that throughout the Nation's history, Presidents have
tested the limits of their authority, but this is the first time a
Chief Executive, who is charged with the responsibility to ``take care
that the laws be faithfully executed,'' has asserted the absolute power
to nullify or change these laws by decree.

Under our Constitution, the President does not get to pick which laws
to enforce and which laws to ignore. He does not get to pick who must
obey the law and who gets to live above the law. He is forbidden from
making laws himself. ``All legislative power herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States.''

Whether we choose to recognize it or not, this is a full-fledged
constitutional crisis. If this precedent is allowed to stand, it will
render meaningless the separation of powers and the checks and balances
that comprise the fundamental architecture of our Constitution, that
have preserved our freedom for 225 years. If this precedent stands,
every future President--Republican and Democrat--will cite it as
justification for lawmaking by decree.

The measure before us is the first act of this Congress to restore
the balance of powers within this government. The President would be
well advised to heed it before sterner measures are required.

The seizure of legislative authority by the executive proved fatal to
the Roman republic. Now that is happening in our own time. Let that not
be the legacy of this administration.

For more than two centuries, Americans have successfully defended our
Constitution, and now history requires this generation to do so again,
which it does beginning with this measure today.

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