Also, I think that the real scare of what the Obama Admin also has implications which are larger than the issues we're hearing about in the news.  If a president can simply use executive powers to enact what he wishes when Congress chooses not to do so, how is the president not aggregating legislative power for himself?  Also, remember back to when the Obama Justice Department refused to enforce DOMA because it opined it was not constitutional?  Again, if Congress has created a law which the President refuses to enforce, how is the President not effectively acting like he has legislative powers?I really hope that people who agree with the end result of what Obama has done take issue with the fact that he's doing these things.  When the President accumulates and uses powers that he is not supposed to have, he turns himself into a king.

Don't you have a kind of Parliament and a Constitution ?  I don't understand about Divine Right (and ) King …  :-[

The president is an elected monarch supposedly constrained by a bicameral parliament and the judiciary.

Glorious !!

The abuse of executive orders by presidents both Republican and Democrat over the last 60+ years is amazing if anyone ares to research it.  It is like the Elephant sitting in the corner that nobody is willing to say anything about it out loud and if they do then they are ridiculed by the media and pundits as being extremists who just want to derail efficient government.  An executive order is essentially law by decree, I thought only Congress had the power to promulgate laws?

I will partly agree, partly disagree. I do think that separation of powers is one of the most important foundations any nation can have.  Without them, a constitution does not mean much.  With that said, I do think there are plenty of situations in which presidents need to be allowed to "test the water", so to speak, with their actions.  The limits on the powers of the president are not black and white; sometimes a president with do something which he will argue is constitutional, someone will disagree and try to prevent him from doing it, and the Supreme Court will later agree with him or not.  Once a SCOTUS decision is made, we have a new area of Constitutional Law which has been clarified, and we are all better for it.  The president then should accept it and not try to usurp it.  But up until the point at which the law has been clarified, I do not think that it is an abuse of power for the president to take an action based on the good-faith belief that what he is doing is constitutional.

So the according to that logic, Obama was justified in deciding to not try an uphold DOMA because he decided that the law was unconstitutional and since the SCOTUS has not clarified the constitutionality of DOMA then he is within his rights?  Or how about the recent decision that led to this thread in the first place?  The law is the law until changed by Congress or the Courts.  The president and all other executive agencies job and responsibility is to uphold the law as written and not pick and chose what areas or which laws will be enforced.    I just think that executive orders are a usurpation of the prerogatives of Congress  and are a an attempt, whether in good faith or not, to enact legislation by decree.  They a minor version of the Fuehrer Prinzip.

But what if such actions are found to be constitutional by SCOTUS later on?  Doesn't that "vindicate" a particular action?  In the case with DOMA, the executive branch has an affirmative responsibility to enforce it.  If Obama does not want to enforce it, he needs to wait until someone challenges the law in court and wins the case so that it is found to be unconstitutional.  To me, this seems like a rather clear-cut issue.  Yet this differs from some of the murkier areas of constitutional law, of which there are many.  For example, if the Constitution is not explicit about which branch retains certain powers to do something, the president could potentially presume to retain such power and act accordingly.  I don't think this is something nefarious, but instead is a reasonable exercise of executive power.  If someone else disagrees, they are completely free to challenge it, and the president should of course submit to the interpretation of SCOTUS.

The president has traditionally retained powers (and the courts have not struck these down) which are implied even if not enumerated.  It sounds like you would eliminate any implied powers that he exercises.  I don't have a problem with presidents exercising their traditional non-enumerated powers, but I do have a problem with presidents picking and choosing which laws they will enforce.  That sounds not so much like an exercise of power, but a decision not to fulfill a duty.

Why is this topic locked?  Seemed like a good discussion to me.