Lawmakers face tough health care questions
WASHINGTON — Like his predecessor, President Donald Trump seized on a go-it-alone strategy for fast-tracking his agenda. It took him two weeks to run into the nation’s system of checks and balances.
The legal battle over his executive order on immigration and refugees is a surprisingly early demonstration of a lesson all presidents learn eventually. Governing by executive action may appear easier and faster, but it carries its own legal and political risks.
President Barack Obama was confronted with that reality late in his tenure when, thwarted by the GOP-controlled House, he used what he called a “pen and phone” strategy to advance his agenda. He ultimately found one of his most sweeping actions, the expansion of a program deferring deportation for some immigrants, blocked by the courts, while Republicans blasted him for what they said was an abuse of power.
Republicans have been notably quiet as Trump has taken a similar approach, particularly taking advantage of the precedent giving the president broad leeway when it comes to immigration.
A federal judge’s order in Seattle Friday evening blocking Trump’s ban on admitting travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries showed the limits of the president’s powers and the role of checks and balances among the three branches of government. The administration appealed the judge’s order, but the higher court denied its request for an immediate stay that would have enabled Trump to reinstate the ban. The visas State for Departmentabout 60,000 cancelled people from the affected countries; the legal setbacks had many rushing to restore their documents and find flights to the United States over the weekend.
Trump isn’t alone in trying to maximize executive muscle. Presidents rarely voluntarily restrict their own power. And recent presidents also have used a burst of unilateral action to spur progress at the start of their administrations and to set a tone for Congress, where legislation often moves slowly.
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Despite his initial flurry of action, Obama became more reliant upon executive orders during his second term, when he faced opposition from Republicans. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” he declared at one point, promising public orders and personal efforts to build support
When he acted unilaterally on immigration in 2014, providing temporary legal status to millions living in the U.S. illegally, Republicans insisted he was acting illegally.
The House speaker at the time, John Boehner, accused him of acting like a king or an emperor.
This time, with full control of the White House and Congress, Republicans have been largely muted in their assessments of Trump’s executive actions.
A notable exception has been Arizona Sen. John McCain, who warned Trump not to allow the resumption of enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding following reports that the new administration was planning a review.
“The president can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America,” McCain said.
Democrats are broadly and bitterly opposed to Trump’s proposals — on the health care law, oil pipelines and the border wall — as well as the unilateral way he’s going about pursuing some of them.
“What he is doing is reprehensible to them in most cases,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist and former aide to former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. The go-italone approach, Elmendorf said, is “going to inflame the base of the party and make it hard for Democrats to work with him on other issues.”
Even members of Trump’s own party have distanced themselves from the rollout of his executive orders on immigration. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that Trump “didn’t think it through” and the orders were a “classic example of putting something out there that wasn’t ready for prime time.”
But Graham said the bumpy start still pales in comparison to Obama’s use of executive action, pointing to federal courts blocking the former president’s executive actions on immigration and a piece of his health care overhaul.
“Look what Obama did. His executive orders got struck down by the court. I’m not going to listen to a bunch of Democrats complain about Trump when they sat on the sidelines and did nothing about Obama,” he said.