Obama's Mini-Coup d'Etat

In high school civics courses, we are all taught that there are three branches to the United States government: the executive branch, the judicial branch and the legislative branch.

With all looking on,  last week President Obama took over powers specifically granted to the legislative branch.

Michael McConnell,  who is a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, is a professor of law and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, explains:

President Obama's decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II's use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that "the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal."

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

Bottom line, as wacky as Obamacare is, the President has no authority to alter the law in any way. Which means, he has no authority to alter the starting date for Obamacare that is detailed in the Affordable Care Act that was passed by Congress. By doing so, he has gone beyond his powers as defined in the Constitution and, for all practical purposes, staged a non-violent mini-coup d'etat taking over powers that belong to Congress.

Every branch of government is always attempting to expand its power, but this is a pretty brazen act. If the President succeeds with this, what will he try next? Where is the outrage in Congress?