John Engler Quotes

For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.

Under our Constitution, presidents have something called 'veto power.

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.

The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law.

Congressmen take an independent oath to protect and defend the Constitution. They work with the President; they do not work for the President.

I am not responsible to the Senate and will not submit my actions to them.

The most important benefit that I can confer on the country by my Presidency is to insist upon the entire independence of the executive and legislative branches of government

Congress has a lot of powers which people, especially those in the executive branch, don't like to talk about.

The Executive is a co-ordinate and independent branch of the Government equally with the Senate; and I have yet to learn under what constitutional authority that branch of the Legislature has a right to require of my an account of any communication ... made to the heads of departments ...

there is often an imbalance between the prerogatives of the executive branch and the capacity of a parliament to truly exercise its regulatory powers over public spending and the budget.

In America, we divide federal power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches so that no one holds too much power. This is sixth-grade civics: Congress writes the laws; the president executes the laws; and the courts apply those laws fairly and dispassionately to cases.

I will continue to ask the president and his subordinates to work with Congress rather than against it.

It's not their job from the establishment-through-calcification to sit there and try to withhold the president, to rein him in or slow down his agenda.

Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.

I happened to have the privilege of serving in Congress. It will be 16 years at the end of this term. And I think I made a difference here on important issues.

The intelligence community, for the most part, has no accountability at all; to the Congress, to us the American people, and so they feel that they above the law.

If I were the president, I would be very concerned... and I would do what was reasonably necessary to find a way to get my people confirmed.

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.

The presidency is the most visible thread that runs through the tapestry of the American government. More often than not, for good or for ill, it sets the tone for the other branches and spurs the expectations of the people.

And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system. They should be counter-acting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent.

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.

I suppose this [Watergate] is an example of the dangers of letting down your guard against increased executive powers–no matter what the circumstances. Not that the danger was not real, but in this case the risk of the remedy was as great as the disease. There was a willingness to accept without challenge the Executive's claim to increased power. That's why we acted as we did, and it was a mistake.