This is apparently the only veneer of an excuse that Obama could come up with for his abuse of power regarding immigration. From the fundraising email he sent out after his speech:
Right now, I want to tell you why I’m taking action on immigration.
There’s no disagreement in Washington that our system is badly broken. That’s why a bipartisan majority in the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform. That was more than 500 days ago, but we’re still waiting for the House to hold a vote.
So… because the House didn’t pass a bill that the Senate did, that gives the President authority to ignore Congress, the law, and the Constitution and act by executive fiat? Bills get passed by one house of congress and ignored by the other all the time. And some bills never get passed by either house because there isn’t any support for it. That does not give the president dictatorial powers to act alone.
This president is dangerous and liberals will rue the day they let him get away with it if a conservative tyrant ever ascends to the throne.
Personally, I think he’s lying. Again. He really did it because he could. That is to say, he knows what milquetoasts the Republicans have become, so he has little concern. We’ll see shortly if he’s correct. Me? I’ve become a cynic where the Republicans are concerned. I always expect them to be little more than whimpy wussies. They’ll cry, pontificate, then say they can’t do anything, like, say, use their Constitutionally granted powers. Suing him is a frickin’ joke. Not that Obama will obey any law/court decision he doesn’t like. We’ve seen that he won’t. As usual, I expect nothing from the Republicans. Hope I’m wrong this time.
I think the GOP response is pretty easy on this one. The various State Governors and GOP House need to present a number of lawsuits against this.
Use as the pivot point in the lawsuit Section 8 of the Constitution which enumerates the specific powers of Congress, namely:
“Congress shall have the power to.. To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”
Don’t mess with “funding bills” or “impeachment” or any of that crap. Simply flood the courts and try to get the suit up the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, surrogates on the ground, namely us, need to note far and wide that Obama took a bad economy and just added 5+ million new legal workers to it, a number greater than all the jobs he’s created in the past six-years. Ask people if the unemployment rate will now be adjusted to account for this.
This is a slam dunk presentation that will appeal to a 60-70% majority in the US. People who have voted Dem in the past get this. It wasn’t Obama’s decision to make and this will flood our job market and cause economic issues. It is up to the GOP to present this message correctly. The GOP presidential candidate who can pull this off will win in 2016.