The essence of my proposal here is that the GOP would hold a caucus in which its members pledge not take any action against one future Republican president elected in 2016, 2020, or 2024, if he or she were to issue one executive order of equivalent impact with Obama’s threatened Big Amnesty order, if Obama goes through with it.
You Dems dare to get Big Amnesty by unconstitutional executive-branch de facto legislating? Know this, then: The next time we elect a president, we get Big Fence, or Big Obamacare Repeal, or some other Big conservative wish-list law, by a similar executive order.
The GOP could do this if a) they were too chicken to pledge impeachment in retaliation for Big Amnesty, b) they pursued such, but found the public to be too much against it, or c) if the House went ahead and impeached Obama in retaliation, but with no effect on his behavior. Again, Senate conviction is impossible. Of course, I’m for the GOP pledging both impeachment and retaliation by executive order. ASAP. Give Obama and his party several reasons to want to back-down .
The principle is simple: this is grossly unconstitutional, and to deter Democrats from ever tolerating such again from one of their presidents, we will make them pay an equivalent price policy-wise.
It is only in the language, and in agreeing upon the proposed menu of proportionately retaliatory executive actions, where things get tricky.
As to the language, Republicans would have to say, “We are pledging ourselves to do nothing against one executive order by a GOP president we think is unconstitutional, for the sake of keeping any more of such orders being done. We will thus allow one instance of egregious Constitution violation for the sake of protecting it against many more.” The language must not say that any president has a right to such an action.
As to the menu of acceptable retaliatory actions, this would be difficult to gain agreement upon, but such agreement would be absolutely necessary. Otherwise, we would face the prospect of some rogue Republican presidential candidate promising to do a too expansive retaliatory executive order, and he or she winning the election. Or, we would face the prospect of a Republican president, once in office, springing some quite new proposal upon us and saying we had agreed to it in principle. So each item — I would recommend three to five options — on the menu of acceptable retaliatory options would have to have some flexibility, such that a Republican president as late as 2024 would still find them relevant, but not so much as to amount to a blank check.
I would leave the debate about such proposals to the Republican meeting, which should include all Republicans sitting in or elected to Congress, all Republican governors, and perhaps the chairman and other high officers of the party also. My suggestion would be to make the options as similar in broad nature to the promised Obama executive order as possible — i.e., they would be orders that mainly work via purported prosecutorial discretion, and that similarly effect so many millions of persons or have an equivalent fiscal effect. If a couple of these options could be drafted with respect to immigration policy, and if in a “restrictionist” spirit, all the better. I would, however, strongly advise against promises to punish those who have benefited from Obama’s order — we shouldn’t make the legal status of millions a back-and-forth political football.
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Simplicity, ladies and gentlemen. You allow your president to blatantly violate the Constitution for X amount of policy/political gain, we will allow one of ours to do the same in the future. We will do so regardless of what might happen in the courts, or with any shut-down or impeachment threat.
It’s the people’s Constitution. Republican representatives, show the people with actions they don’t need legal or budget-rules expertise to understand, that you stand up for it.