Letters: Obama’s executive orders

Re “Imperial, shrinking president,” Opinion, Feb. 18

As Jonah Goldberg insinuates, what we all learned in fifth-grade civics class about the “three branches of government producing checks and balances” now appears doubtful. Something of an honor system must operate to keep President Obama and Congress on the constitutional level.

Obama contends that Congress has granted him authority for his various executive orders, even where they purport to make unilateral changes to legislation.

But Congress cannot constitutionally shirk its legislative responsibilities. That much was settled in the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court case Clinton vs. City of New York, when Congress’ attempt to give the president the line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional. Whether Congress gives explicit or tacit approval, the president cannot be empowered to make unilateral changes to laws.

Obama is not the worst president we will ever have. But by exploiting a weakness in our system, he’s blazing a trail for someone more authoritarian to follow.

Gary LaPook

Moorpark

Goldberg ignores the elephant in the room. The reason Obama has had to resort to executive orders and other hallmarks of the so-called imperial presidency is that he has gotten no cooperation from the obstructionist Republicans in Congress.

For Goldberg to say that “Democrats don’t like it when Republican presidents behave like Democratic ones” — in the context of comparing Obama to Richard Nixon — is an absolute distortion of the historical record. Nixon tried to save his truly imperial presidency with a claim of executive privilege, which the Supreme Court rejected. No Democratic president has ever tried to subvert the Constitution the way Nixon did.

To say that Obama is acting with a similar disregard for the constitutionally imposed limits on his authority is ridiculous.

Robert McEwen

Cypress

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