Tom Daschle Quotes

In going too far, they [presidents] have taken away the individual rights of American citizens.

The Constitution of the United States doesn't change the powers of the president based on the number by which you get elected.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

I think you have to be concerned about any presidential executive order because it has the power of law until it's knocked down by an act of Congress or a court.

If we are willing to concede the President dictatorial authority where we happen to agree with him, as liberals have tended to do over the years, we will have little chance of tying his hands when we do not....You will see why many of us in the Congress understand how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when his creation ran amok.

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.

What do we do with a president who can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or that part?

There is also the issue of personal privacy when it comes the executive power. Throughout our nation's history, whether it was habeas corpus during the Civil War, Alien and Sedition Acts in World War I, or Japanese internment camps in World War II, presidents have gone too far.

I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it.

The President of the United States has a much wider power than the German Kaiser had, for he depended on parliament.

Under unitary executive theory, the [George W.]Bush administration has claimed the right to seize American citizens in the United States and imprison them indefinitely without a charge.

Congress could always stop the President if Congress thinks that what the President has done exceeds the President's authority or is just wrong for the United States.

What [President Donald Trump] is doing is taking away the executive overreach that President [Barack] Obama did which we thought exceeded his powers.

Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. From the nature of the Constitution, ... I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.

The president has the authority to end this dragnet surveillance immediately

While Congress saw some need to loosen the standard in the initial days of a war, it wanted the president to comply with FISA in carrying out surveillance in the United States.

The administration of George W. Bush, emboldened by the Sept. 11 attacks and the backing of a Republican Congress, has sought to further extend presidential power over national security. Most of the expansion has taken place in secret, making Congressional or judicial supervision particularly difficult.

There are few things more dangerous in a democracy than allowing a President to wage secret wars without the knowledge of the country.

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.

[In wartime] there is almost always an overstretch [for power] by the President.

If Mr. Roosevelt can do what he likes without consulting Congress, and we give him our boys, God alone knows what he will do with them.

Without the authority of Congress, the President cannot fire a hostile gun in any case except to repel the attacks of the enemy.

Congress has chosen to recognize that a president may be forced to pursue legitimate foreign policy objectives by covert means. Such recognition, however, does not mean it surrenders the right to be informed of covert measures so that it can express its views as to the legitimacy of the goals or the wisdom of seeking to achieve them.

I do not believe that the President has any powers at all except such as the Constitution expressly gives him or such as are necessarily inferred.

We are told here today, that what the King of England can't do, the President of the United States can.