Thanks for posting.

Zitat

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The line of separation gets even fuzzier when you consider the “unitary executive theory” used by President George W. Bush and increasingly embraced by the Obama administration. Under this theory, executive power is exclusively reserved to the president. Therefore, any attempt to limit the president’s control over the executive branch is unconstitutional. The theory claims the executive has full authority over foreign relations, military affairs, national security, intelligence policy, presidential appointment, and full supervisory powers over the agencies of the executive branch.

Presidential signing statements used extensively by both Bush and Obama implement this theory and are texts explaining the president’s view on legislation he is signing into law. They clarify any ambiguity in the law and identify any parts of the bill that the president believes to be unconstitutional. Some argue that Bush used these statements in similar ways to the line item veto, ruled unconstitutional in Clinton v. New York. Under the Bush administration, parts of laws that the president found unconstitutional under the framework of unitary executive theory were ignored.

The Obama administration has taken this further in two ways. First, instead of only using these legal justifications on laws being signed in by the current administration, the Obama administration has made rulings on laws signed under previous administrations, such as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). President Obama instructed the Department of Justice to stop defending section 3 of DOMA because they deemed it unconstitutional. Secondly, the Obama administration seems to be using this selective enforcement for pure policy reasons, without any unconstitutional justification. This can be seen in the unilateral administrative changes to PPACA implementation.

Perhaps the best example of selective enforcement of the law by both the Bush and Obama administrations is the GM and Chrysler bailouts. While
- See more at: http://adamgoldfein.com/selective-enforc...w.U33U5HTx.dpuf

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