Last month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a propagandistically named “net neutrality” plan by a party-line vote of three to two
writes
Benny Huang.
… surely a momentous decision like this one can’t be made within the executive branch, behind closed doors, by a group of unelected bureaucrats? And surely they can’t keep the plan secret until it passes?
Constitutionally speaking, they can’t. According to Article I of the
Constitution, the power to create law is vested in the legislative
branch. Legislators are not authorized to abdicate their
responsibilities to a board, much less to the executive branch, which is
where the FCC resides. A decision this important requires a full
hearing in the halls of Congress with a vote by our elected
representatives.
But that’s soooooo twentieth century. If the events of
recent months are any indicator, the United States has officially
transcended the messy process of legislating. We simply don’t decide
contentious issues in Congress anymore. That’s what President Obama and
his proxies are for.
The trend didn’t begin in recent months, or even with the 2009
inauguration of Barack Obama, but it has nonetheless picked up speed
like a runaway train since the Republican landslide of 2014. The
president, if you can still call him that, is now facing some tepid
opposition in Congress, which apparently entitles him to bypass that
body entirely. It’s their fault for opposing his agenda. If they weren’t
so “obstructionist” or “dysfunctional,” they’d give the president
whatever he wants, no questions asked. The same principle does not apply
to all presidents, of course, only this one.
… there’s the issue of President Obama’s
executive amnesty for illegal aliens, which is clearly illegal, and he
knows it. He even said so on Univision, warning Hispanic voters that
there’s a process to changing laws and the process matters. “With
respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through
executive order, that’s just not the case…. There are enough laws on the
books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to
enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive
order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my
appropriate role as president.” That was before he decided that the
power was in fact his to wield. Kind of makes you wonder what took him
so long to use it?
The Obama Administration’s argument, as far as I can tell, is that
it’s merely exercising a little prosecutorial “discretion.” Such a thing
does exist but it must be exercised with extreme caution lest justice
devolve into the arbitrary rule of men, which I’m beginning to suspect
is this president’s goal.
Actually changing the law would require congressional action but, the
administration posits, since the administration is not changing the
law, there’s no need. Unfortunately, President Obama said something
quite different when a group of pro-illegal immigration hecklers
interrupted him in Chicago. “You’re absolutely right that there have
been significant numbers of deportations… But what you are not paying
attention to is the fact that I just took an action to change the law,”
Obama said.
Change the law? Can presidents just do that? Apparently no
one ever taught this supposed constitutional scholar that the president
doesn’t get to do whatever he wants just because he thinks he has right
on his side. But alas, the lesson he’s learned in Washington is quite
the opposite. He’s seen that he can change immigration laws and ban a
popular type of ammunition with the snap of his fingers, so what’s to
stop him from regulating the internet? No one has yet stopped him. I’ve
resigned myself to believe that no one ever will.
