M. Richard Maxson
Not everybody can call themselves a “Constitutionalist.”. The term “Constitutionalist” brings with it an objective moral standard that compels them to raise their standard up to the Founding Fathers. Every official swears an oath of office before God to uphold and defend it. It is the governing document of these United States. It’s also readily available and accepted by many across the country as the standard. All we have to do now is enforce it. Either what you’re for or what you’re doing is in the Constitution or it is not.
It is quite clear that the role of Congress to make all laws, the Judiciary to interpret the laws, and the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This system was wisely set into place by our country’s framers because they saw the effects of executive overreach by the crown in England and designed the Constitution to avoid concentrating power in one leader or one branch of government. That is Fascism, Socialism, or Communism. The framers knew first hand that the concentration of power in the same hands was a threat to individual liberty and the rule of law.
Unfortunately, we've moved so far away from the plain reading of the Constitution that we could fairly be called a post-constitutional society and that has a lot to do with why our government functions so poorly, why politics has become so contentious, and why our nation is slipping into decline. A nation where the law has more to do with the whims of the people in power than constitutional principles is a nation that will become increasingly embittered and unstable over time. As prominent law professor Jonathan Turley stated in his testimony before a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, there has been “a massive gravitational shift of authority to the Executive Branch that threatens the stability and functionality of our tripartite system.”
The Constitution does not confer upon the president the executive power to circumvent Congress and write, or rewrite, laws through executive fiat. The disaster of this lawless administration in Washington that unilaterally changes laws passed by Congress. This trend has accelerated at an alarming rate under President Obama. In President Obama’s State of the Union address in front of Congress and the American people, this evolving dictator vowed to act alone. He also boldly asserts that he has a “pen and a phone” to change our laws through his executive decrees.
Throughout the past five years, President Obama has routinely failed to enforce laws that he disagrees with for policy reasons and has stretched his authority to put policies in place that the American people, through their elected representatives, have rejected. We cannot allow any president, to ignore the constitutional limits on executive power. The framers did not expect America’s elected representatives in Congress and the federal judiciary to sit on the sidelines and watch as one branch aggrandized its own powers and exceeded the authority granted it Without Congress and the courts stepping in, the constitutional requirement that the President “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” will become an unenforceable and meaningless check on presidential ambition.by the Constitution.
With an unrestrained Executive Branch that knows no limits, it is ultimately up to the Congress and the courts to check the President’s overreach and restore balance to our system of government. Why is not happening? It is because our country's problem is that we have one party that has been taken over by anti-Constitutional ideology while denying that fact and attempting to hide behind the document. We have a second party that is partially afflicted by the same anti-Constitutional disease.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention and the delegates to each state’s ratification convention foresaw a time when the Federal government might breach the Constitution’s limits and begin oppressing the people. Agencies such as the IRS and EPA and programs such as Obamacare demonstrate that the Framers’ fear was correct. We are at a crucial point in the history of America, and perhaps approaching a point of no return. What true Constituional patriots do now will decide the fate and the future of the nation.
