Members of Congress Urge President to Rule by Decree

David BoazWith President Biden ’s legislative agenda bogging down in Congress, left‐​leaning members of Congress are urging him to enact much of his program through executive orders. That is, members of Congress are asking the president to usurp their legislative authority.The Constitution delegates “all legislative powers herein granted” to Congress. But over the past few decades, presidents have increasingly legislated through executive orders, and courts have been insufficiently attentive to that abuse of power.Marianna Sotomayorreports in the Washington Post:The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), which represents 98 liberal House members, plans to release their slate ofexecutive order recommendations on Thursday, providing Biden with directions on how to automatically lower health ‐​care costs, increase wages for some workers, protect the environment, expand immigrant rights, overhaul policing, help care workers and institute tax changes. They also plan to urge him to cancel all federal student loan debt.Whatever you think of those policy proposals, they ’re clearly legislation. And Congress, the body empowered by the Constitution to legislate, has not chosen to pass legislation on these matters. But too often in recent years, when the president can’t persuade our elected representatives to give him the laws he wants, he acts like one of the kin gs of old and just issues an executive order.President Bill Clinton ’s interior secretary, Bruce Babbit...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs