Authorization to Initiate Litigation for Actions By the President

Floor Speech

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Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, my favorite piece of art in this Capitol is a picture in the rotunda of our Founding Fathers gathered together to sign the Declaration of Independence, a document that they knew, when they signed it, they were signing their own death warrant if they were caught and tried for treason. They felt that strongly that they wanted to escape the bonds of a monarch and pursue freedom.

Our forefathers fought a Revolution against the greatest military power on Earth to escape the bonds of a monarchy. At the end of that bloody Revolution, the last thing they wanted was another king. They wanted freedom.

To protect that precious freedom, they designed a government of, by, and for the people based on a separation of powers. The legislative branch makes the laws; the executive branch enforces laws.

President Obama has decided that he is not bound by the separation of powers. He has bragged that if Congress will not accept his priorities, he has a pen and a phone, and he will make the laws himself.

He may have a pen, but the people have the Constitution left us by our forefathers. Our forefathers recognized that one man who can both make the laws and enforce the laws is a king, not a President. Thomas Jefferson once said that freedom does not disappear all at once, but is eroded imperceptibly day by day.

The prosperity of our great country sprang from our freedom. Our form of government set forth in the Constitution by our forefathers has protected that very fragile freedom for 200 years.

Mr. Speaker, my friends across the aisle worry about the price of a lawsuit to protect our freedom. Our forefathers paid dearly for that freedom. Many gave all they had, even their lives.

Our freedom is in peril, my friends. We cannot stand by and watch the President shred our Constitution. I stand in support of H. Res. 676.

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