Statement of Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte
Full Committee Hearing
“The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws”
Chairman Goodlatte: Today’s hearing is about the President’s role in our constitutional system.
Our system of government is a tripartite one, with each branch having certain defined functions delegated to it by the Constitution. The President is charged with executing the laws; the Congress with writing the laws; and the Judiciary with interpreting them.
The Obama Administration, however, has ignored the Constitution’s carefully balanced separation of powers and unilaterally granted itself the extra-constitutional authority to amend the laws and to waive or suspend their enforcement.
This raw assertion of authority goes well beyond the “executive power” granted to the President and specifically violates the Constitution’s command that the President is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The President’s encroachment into Congress’s sphere of power is not a transgression that should be taken lightly. As English historian Edward Gibbon famously observed regarding the fall of the Roman Empire, “the principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.” Although the President’s actions may not yet amount to the executive’s powers overtaking the legislative power, they are certainly undermining the rule of law that is at the center of our constitutional design.
