Tim Kaine Quotes

The power to make war is vested in Congress and not in the President. Congress has no constitutional authority to grant such authority to the president.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

When the president acts in absence of a congressional grant of authority, he can rely only upon his own independent powers. When the president takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb.

Our Founding Fathers created the Executive Branch to implement and enforce the laws written by Congress, and vested this power in the president.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

When a President asserts constitutional powers he needs to be pretty certain he has those powers.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

It should be remembered that the president cannot, by executive order, do things that affects the public at large unless there is some Congressional basis for it.

The president is supposed to execute faithfully the laws that the legislature has written. So, the executive orders that Barack Obama president is writing are without precedent. Without precedent so with he's rewriting law. It's totally illegal.

I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America.

When I'm president, we'll have executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day

The authority to declare war rests in Congress, not in an out-of-control president.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

Federal bureaucracies are creatures of Congress, not the executive.

Congress ... is far more than the simple, limited advisory council that most Presidents would like to maintain.

I do not believe that we [Congress] should allow him [the President] to nullify acts of Congress by executive fiat. There is not one syllable in the Constitution which authorizes the President to exercise such power.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

... the opinion of the Supreme Court ... ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court, must each be guided by its own opinion of the constitution.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law; but the maker of the law may commit something to the discretion of the other departments, and the precise boundary of this power is a subject of delicate and difficult inquiry.

Nor is there any doubt that the Senate and President possess the power of making treaties.

I don’t know if President (George W.) Bush understood how extreme some of the arguments were about executive power that some people in his administration were making.

It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusing to them his assent.

Every American war has brought a struggle between Congress and the Executive over war powers. The Constitution is somewhat annoyingly ambiguous on the point declaring that the President is Commander in Chief but empowering Congress to provide for the common defense, declare war, and raise and support armies.