Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Loretta Lynch

Hearing

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks today at a committee meeting to vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General of the United States:

"In their wisdom, our Founders gave Congress certain powers as a coequal branch of government. One of those powers was the power to confirm nominees.

At the outset of the nomination process, I declared my view that I could not vote to confirm any candidate for Attorney General who supported the President's unlawful executive amnesty. This is the top law enforcement job in America--not a political position--and anyone who holds this position must have total fidelity to the laws and Constitution of the United States.

The Senate cannot confirm someone to this post who is going to support and advance a scheme that violates our Constitution and eviscerates congressional authority. Congress makes the laws, not the President--as every school child knows.

Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation to provide amnesty, work permits, and financial benefits to illegal immigrants. We rejected it in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014. President Obama's executive order nullifies the immigration laws we do have--the Immigration and Nationality Act--and replaces them with the very measures Congress rejected.

Even King George III lacked the power to legislate without Parliament.

President Obama's executive action is not "prosecutorial discretion." It provides illegal immigrants with work authorization, trillions in Social Security and Medicare benefits, tax credits of up to $10,000 a year, and even the possibility of chain migration and citizenship. Again, all of these measures were rejected by Congress.

I discussed these issues with Ms. Lynch. I asked her plainly whether she supported the President's unilateral decision to make his own immigration rules. Here is the relevant transcript:

Sessions: I have to have a clear answer to this question: Ms. Lynch, do you believe the executive action announced by President Obama on November 20th is legal and constitutional? Yes or no?

Lynch: As I've read the opinion, I do believe it is, Senator.

One of the most stunning features of the President's action is the mass grant of work permits, Social Security numbers, and photo IDs to up to 5 million illegal immigrants--taking jobs directly from U.S.-born citizens and legal immigrants now living here.

U.S. Civil Rights Commission member Peter Kirsanow has discussed and written at length about how allowing illegal immigrants to take jobs undermines the rights of U.S. workers, including African-American workers suffering from high unemployment. So I asked Ms. Lynch about what she might do to protect the lawful rights of legal U.S. workers. Here is the exchange in question:

Sessions: Who has more right to a job in this country? A lawful immigrant who's here, or citizen--or a person who entered the country unlawfully?

Lynch: I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that's shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they would be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace.

This is a historic moment with regard to the power of Congress and the Executive Branch. Law Professor Jonathan Turley described it as a "constitutional tipping point." I would like to read from that testimony now at length. It was delivered before the House in February of 2014, 9 months before the President issued his sweeping immigration order:

The current passivity of Congress represents a crisis of faith for members willing to see a president assume legislative powers in exchange for insular policy gains. The short-term, insular victories achieved by this President will come at a prohibitive cost if the current imbalance is not corrected. Constitutional authority is easy to lose in the transient shifts of politics. It is far more difficult to regain. If a passion for the Constitution does not motivate members, perhaps a sense of self-preservation will be enough to unify members. President Obama will not be our last president. However, these acquired powers will be passed to his successors. When that occurs, members may loathe the day that they remained silent as the power of government shifted so radically to the Chief Executive. The powerful personality that engendered this loyalty will be gone, but the powers will remain. We are now at the constitutional tipping point for our system. If balance is to be reestablished, it must begin before this President leaves office and that will likely require every possible means to reassert legislative authority.

With that trenchant warning in mind, I would vote no on this nomination and ask colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. Every day we allow the President to erode and destroy the powers of Congress, we are allowing the President to erode and destroy the voice and the rights of the people we represent."

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