On the recordJune 3, 2015
I think that we are at a point where it is difficult to reconcile what we are trying to do here--that is, in an appropriations bill--with these policy riders. Now, I have heard my chairman claim that the President of the United States has done things that are illegal three or four times. I think that that kind of language is not useful in the debate, nor is it factual, because I think that the President has been acting well in concert with the precedents of former Presidents who have provided clemency and amnesty. And I have heard Members like Mr. King criticize those other Presidents who have provided amnesty, like Ronald Reagan and others, and I have never heard anyone claim that President Reagan acted illegally in those matters. So I find it unusual that we would be in this type of circumstance. I heard the chairman run through a litany in which he also has the Supreme Court finally make some decision, which they have obviously not done yet. So I would like to try to get back on the tracks of moving an appropriations bill. And the point that we have to understand here is that, if we are a coequal branch of the government--that is, the President is coequal to us, but we are one-half of the Congress--then the idea that what the House says goes is nonsensical.
