Speech #1130124011

I dont think he has the authority to do it. something he himself said he didnt have 22 times in published comments. but it poisons the well at a time when I think there was a lot of hope that maybe we could turn this place around. It is not just my view. it is the view of a number of my Democratic colleagues too. For example. after the Presidents Executive action on immigration. the senior Senator from Louisiana said: We are all frustrated with our broken immigration system. but the way forward is not unilateral action by the President. I agree with that comment. Her sentiments were also echoed by the junior Senator from Indiana. who believes President Obama should not be making what he called "significant policy changes" on his own. The senior Senator from Missouri said similarly. "How this is coming about makes me uncomfortable. and I think it probably makes most Missourians uncomfortable." The reason they feel uncomfortable is that the Presidents Executive order represents a direct affront to the constitutional separation of powers. Even if you agree on the substance of what he did. which itself is controversial. how he did it was a direct affront to our Constitution and the separation of powers. and it is unsustainable. It provokes a response from Congress when it feels left out. and. in fact. the President is going to need Congress to work with him to fix our broken immigration system because Congress remains the possessor of the power of the purse. The Senator from Maine put it this way. He said: The Framers knew what they were doing. and it doesnt say if the president gets frustrated and Congress doesnt act. he gets to do what he thinks is important for the country [on his own]. So this is not a partisan issue in the sense that Republicans and Democrats see the world through entirely different lenses. Plenty of Democrats understand that the Presidents action has made it significantly harder for us to get off on the right foot in the new year on a number of issues we already agree on by and large. The junior Senator from North Dakota said the immigration order "could poison any hope of compromise or bipartisanship in the new Senate before its even started." I agree with the sentiment. I hope she is wrong. and I hope we can prove that wrong by saying we are not going to give up and we are not going to let what the President does determine what we do. We have to do our job and we have to function. and then we are going to have to work with the President hopefully to try to move the country forward in a number of these areas.