WASHINGTON, July 16 (RIA Novosti) - In testimony before the House Rules Committee on the lawsuit against President Barack Obama, Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley argued Wednesday that the administration’s concentration of power in the presidency represents a new and dangerous model of government in the United States.
“Our system is changing in a dangerous and destabilizing way. We are seeing the emergence of a different model of government in our country – a model long ago rejected by the Framers [of the US Constitution]," Prof. Turley said.
“When a president can govern alone, he can become a government unto himself, which is precisely the danger the Framers sought to avoid in the establishment of our tripartite system of government,” stated Turley.
At the beginning of his new term, President Obama announced that he would handle Congressional gridlock and govern with a pen and a phone. This provoked some concerns from the US public and the other two branches of the US government.
The Rules Committee hearing was convened to examine the merits of the lawsuit against President Obama brought by House Speaker John Boehner for his failure to faithfully execute the law. The particulars of the case deal with Obama’s executive decision to delay the employee mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), after the law had been signed.
Ranking Democratic, Louise Slaughter, argued that the suit is motivated by partisanship, citing efforts by Republicans to repeal the ACA fifty times.
Slaughter noted during the hearing that the Congress itself has the powers to remedy executive overreach without going to the courts with a lawsuit. Those powers include the power of the purse, the authority to originate laws to temper the President, and the power of impeachment.
Asked after the hearing whether impeachment was an option, Slaughter told RIA Novosti, “This does not in any possible realm of the imagination rise to what is necessary for impeachment. Impeachment [charges] are high crimes and misdemeanor. We haven’t seen any of that anywhere around this President.”
Rules Committee Chairman, Republican Pete Sessions, also told RIA Novosti that the Boehner lawsuit is the Republican’s chosen method to reign in executive branch excesses. “Impeachment is not the issue,” said Sessions.
He argued that the discussion of impeachment originated from the Left, not from his party.
“If Democrats and liberals want to impeach the President, they can bring forth that motion. But the Republicans, nor is the Speaker even suggesting that.”
Prof. Turley told RIA Novosti that the Boehner lawsuit “is not the preferred way” to curb executive excesses, but he supports shifting the balance of power away from executive branch dominance. Members of Congress have forfeited many of their authorities as a coequal branch of government to a “ueber-presidency,” according to Turley.
“The President suggested he can go it alone,” Prof. Turley said in his opening remarks. “He has said he will resolve the deadlock in Congress, the division in Congress by offering changes on his own terms as a majority of one. That’s what makes it dangerous.”
He warned that Obama will not be the last president, but “the arguments that he made today will be used then to nullify or suspend environmental law or discrimination laws.”
US House Speaker John Boehner is pursuing a lawsuit against Barack Obama over abuse of power. House Republicans have argued that Obama is abusing his authority by side-stepping Congress on immigration, healthcare and other policies.
