Barack Obama Quotes
I've got a pen and I've got a phone - and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.
Obama, Barack. "Remarks Prior to a Cabinet Meeting." Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Barack Obama, 2014, Book 1, United States Government Printing Office, 2015, p. 30.
This constitution was written 7 years before the national constitutional convention. It shows that there was concern about the separation of powers in United States even before the Constitution was drafted. See {616750} for an even clearer statement of the separation of powers principle.
This was the President’s original role regarding legislation. However, in the 20th century, Presidents have become more active and suggest laws and often initiate the process and then end it by signing the law that he suggested and shepherded through the Congress. But this was never the vision of the Founding Fathers, but since it is not addressed in the Constitution is not an unconstitutional process.
Alberto Gonzalez, White House Counsel and later Attorney General who was forced to resign and David S. Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, had come up with a novel view of the powers of the presidency. They argued that since the President is the Commander in Chief, in a war situation or intelligence gathering thereto, has the Constitutional responsibility for that function, he need not obey any laws of Congress as in the conduct of the war Congress would be impinging on the Constitutional separation of powers which itself was prohibited by the Constitution. The argument did not find any significant legal support but for a while the George W. Bush White House behaved as if this were the law, despite the fact that even in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 Congress passed laws regulating the conduct of the armed forces as is provided for in other parts of the Constitution. Yet even Goldsmith would allow the President some powers that many think are unconstitutional and/or belong to Congress. See {32436}.
In recent years, presidents of both parties have refused to allow Congress in its oversight responsibility to question certain assistants or see certain documents that are not technically national secrets. The questionable legal principle, executive privilege, supposedly assures that the President can get honest confidential advice without the advice giver feeing intimidated that the advice will become public. However, Presidents have also used this principle to cover-up scandals, wrong doing, and incompetence. Since the President simply asserts the “privilege” there is no way of checking in any particular case to determine if it is an abuse or not.
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
