By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Wednesday, February 12, Congressman Mike Rogers (R) from Saks announced that he was growing more concerned about the President overstepping Congress with executive orders. Representative Mike Rogers said that he has cosponsored House Resolution 442, the S.T.O.P. (Stop This Overreaching Presidency) Resolution in hopes that it will curb the ability of the president to make administrative changes to laws.
The S.T.O.P. Resolution, would require that the U.S. House of Representatives seek legal action against administrative changes to specific laws passed by Congress. These include the Affordable Care Act, administrative amnesty for illegal aliens and changes to mandatory work requirements for certain government benefits, if those changes were not approved by Congress first.
Rep. Rogers said, “As the president said in his State of the Union speech, it is clear he is ready to bypass Congress to get his policies in place. From administrative delays in Obamacare to advocating for amnesty for illegal immigrants, he has shown he will act alone. With this resolution, Congress is saying it will challenge those administrative changes which ultimately could be settled by the courts.”
Congressman Rogers joins over 100 other co-sponsors of H. Res. 442. The STOP Resolution would use the House budget to fund the legal challenges over the Constitutionality of President Obama’s actions. Among the other co-sponsors is U.S. Representative Martha Roby (R) from Montgomery.
Congresswoman Martha Roby said recently in a written statement, “Under our system, the Legislative Branch enacts the laws and the Executive Branch enforces the laws as they are written, with some reasonable discretion to promulgate details. But, too often the Obama Administration has selectively enforced or, in some cases, altogether waived certain laws based on its preferred ideology. That effectively makes the President a “super-legislator” of sorts. He can pick and choose which laws matter, and which don’t. This must stop.” The STOP resolution would urge Congress to sue the administration for acts of blatant defiance of federal law.
Rep. Roby continued, “The Obama Administration is not the first to overstep its Constitutional authority. Most presidents in recent history have pushed the limits of executive power. However, the actions taken in the last few years have been especially blatant. President Obama and his administration have recklessly stretched the scope of the executive, aggressively imposing by administrative rule or regulation what they could not achieve legislatively. And, amazingly, in some cases the Administration has moved to delay, tweak, or otherwise alter the very healthcare law it pushed to enact – all while dismissing legislative proposals that would have the same effect, but had the benefit of being legal.”
Representative Bradley Byrne (R) from Mobile said recently in a statement: “The Obama Administration has been open and honest about one thing in particular: they have no problem making an end-run around Congress to achieve through administrative means what they cannot legislatively. Placing political convenience above the United States Constitution goes against everything the Founding Fathers intended, and it’s time we put a stop to this practice.”
What the U.S. House of Representatives can do to reign in Presidential abuses is limited by Democratic control of the U.S. Senate.
