Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Obama and the Dispensing Power

President Obama’s abuse of his powers to attempt to grant pseudo-legalization to five millions illegal aliens by executive fiat has been widely described as being “unprecedented” in some quarters. This is inaccurate. Others have tried to argue that reasonable precedent can be found in actions of prior presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who have issued executive orders relating to the implementation of earlier immigration laws. This is also false. It is difficult to find anywhere in the history of the United States a broader assertion of the power of the executive to make law than that asserted by Mr. Obama in this case. That does not mean, however, that this action is wholly without precedent in our collective political history.

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