The current crisis at the border has no simple solution, but President Trump’s insistence on legislative rather than executive action ought to be applauded by anyone concerned about an overreaching executive branch. President Obama used his “pen and phone” so often that the American people -- including federal legislators -- have forgotten that Congress should be the only branch that passes law.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) has gone so far as to tell the President to, “Take that ******* pen of yours and do away with this horrendous, inhumane policy of yours that rips children from the arms of their parents.”
D.C. is truly broken if even congresspeople of the opposing party are telling the President to work unilaterally rather than going through the representatives of the people. Presidential power has so outgrown what the Founders intended that the D.C. swamp monsters don’t know how to get things done without invoking it.
That’s one of the reasons (among many) we need an Article V Convention of States. A Convention of States can reassert the principle that only the people’s representatives can make laws and policies that dictate how this nation operates.
For too long the President and federal bureaucrats have acted as defacto lawmakers, imposing their own agenda on We the People without consulting Congress. It’s time to change that practice and put the American people back in the driver’s seat in D.C.
