Presidents and those they lead in the executive branch often issue edicts, orders and regulations knowing it could take years for the problem to move through the courts.ĭuring the Obama administration, the United States Supreme Court regularly served as a check against the executive branch. Twenty times, the Supreme Court voted unanimously to strike down President Obama’s overreach on a wide range of issues within his executive orders.

In our opinion: Executive overreach must not become the ‘new normal’.

The executive branch is all too happy to take whatever power Congress is willing to provide. Presidents of both political parties have pushed the envelope in expanding executive power. Whether it is in the agencies within the executive branch that have become estates unto themselves or presidents themselves governing by executive order, the problem is the same. The natural byproduct of an executive order is for lawsuits to be filed and for the issue to begin to wend its way through the courts. Representatives can’t be held accountable at the ballot box for the actions of the executive branch. This is how it happens: Congress passes a beautifully named bill filled with sweeping generalizations that bestow on executive branch agencies the power to write law, establish penalties and play judge, jury and executioner when violations occur. Such a scenario enables members of congress to point fingers and place blame on the executive branch and agencies when their constituents are unhappy with burdensome rules and oppressive, overreaching regulations. Boyd Matheson: Election division gets a clarion call to civility, diversity and unity.I have been critical of Congress which has, for decades now, been abdicating its proper authority to the executive branch. Many question why senators and representatives from across the political spectrum would give away the power and leadership authority bequeathed to them in the Constitution.

It is simply what has become sadly acceptable in Washington. The pattern described isn’t unique to presidents of one political party or the other when in power. When issuing executive orders, presidents have nearly committed to memory something that sounds like, “Congress has once again failed to do its job, so I am signing an emergency executive order to deal with the (fill in the blank) crisis.” It is often followed by the admission that they expect opponents to file a lawsuit that would ultimately end up in the United States Supreme Court. The separate and distinct powers provided to each of the three branches of government detailed in the Constitution have been twisted and torqued, abdicated and amassed, undermined and absconded by overreach over the past several decades.

This is not what governing is supposed to look like in America. Presidents of both political parties have increasingly governed by enacting major initiatives and priorities through executive orders.

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