The past several years have not, on balance, been kind to those of us who favor limited government. From the economy to civil liberties to the power of the administrative state, we’re hard-pressed to think of many areas where government hasn’t been expanding its power. In a democracy, however, we’re bound by the decisions of the electorate and the representatives that they choose to hold elected office. Even when we don’t like the outcome, we respect the integrity of the democratic process. We only wish that the federal government would return the favor.
The past several years have not, on balance, been kind to those of us who favor limited government. From the economy to civil liberties to the power of the administrative state, we’re hard-pressed to think of many areas where government hasn’t been expanding its power. In a democracy, however, we’re bound by the decisions of the electorate and the representatives that they choose to hold elected office. Even when we don’t like the outcome, we respect the integrity of the democratic process. We only wish that the federal government would return the favor.
If the rule of law stands for anything, it’s accepting when you’re defeated. As such, we’re troubled by the Obama administration’s repeated refusal to take no for an answer.
The latest example of this trend is Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement that he will sue the state of Texas (with more states likely to follow) in an attempt to require the state to receive preclearance from the federal government before enacting changes to voting procedures. Holder’s Justice Department is making this move in response to the Supreme Court ruling in June requiring Congress to update the preclearance standards of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which rely on data that hasn’t been updated since 1972. With the legislative branch unwilling to do so, Holder will now attempt to ram the policy through the courts, despite overwhelming evidence that the institutional discrimination that justified the original law’s remedies no longer exists.
We regret to note that this is actually one of the less-flagrant examples of legal defiance produced by the Obama administration. Holder’s actions may be imprudent, but they’re not illegal — Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act allows for precisely such challenges.
Other examples are far more egregious.
When President Obama couldn’t get Congress to pass the DREAM Act, offering a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country as minors, he simply decreed it through executive order, essentially usurping the role of the legislative branch under the guise of prosecutorial discretion. When a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the slaying of Trayvon Martin, the Obama Justice Department raised the (legally risible) prospect of charging Zimmerman under federal civil rights statutes. When the president couldn’t get key nominees approved by Congress, he installed them via recess appointments — despite the fact that Congress was still in session.
Such casual disregard for our system of checks and balances is unbecoming of anyone who would hold the office of president of the United States. Preserving the integrity of our political institutions far outstrips the importance of advancing any partisan agenda, left or right.
Our founders anticipated that any encroachments on power by one branch of the government would be met with resistance from the other two. We hope that the Congress and the courts don’t prove them wrong.
— From the Orange County Register