Ted Yoho: “I thank my colleague for yielding. We talk about this country as a country of law, and transparency gets thrown around…”

“I thank my colleague for yielding. We talk about this country as a country of law, and transparency gets thrown around, as does accountability, all the time, yet we fail. We come up short time and time again. The current administration has made multiple attempts to bypass its article II duties and instead assumed the article I legislative powers reserved for Congress. The numerous changes to the Affordable Care Act and the implementation of a one-size-fits-all prosecutorial discretion policy are just a few examples of the Executive's failure to faithfully execute existing Federal laws. Under current law, the Attorney General must report to Congress whenever a Department of Justice official implements a policy to enforce a Federal law. H.R. 3973, the Faithful Execution of the Law Act, simply extends that requirement to apply to all Federal officials. This is a commonsense bill that will bring transparency to the current and future administrations' execution of the law. By requiring these reports to Congress, the American people will get clarity on which laws are not being executed and assurance that these decisions are correctly made. This will also bring healthy debate and an opportunity for the Executive to tell Congress why a law is changed, in what fashion it is changed, and why it is necessary. For that reason, I would think the administration would welcome this legislation.…”