Lamar Smith: “First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for yielding me…”

“First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for yielding me time, and I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Gowdy) for introducing this bill. Mr. Chairman, very quickly in order to respond to what the gentleman from Illinois just said, quite frankly, he is smarter than that. He knows that the letter had to do with individual prosecutorial discretion, and he knows the President basically exempted broad categories of individuals and went far beyond individual discretionary prosecution. H.R. 4138 authorizes either Chamber of Congress to challenge, as an institution, the administration's failure to faithfully execute the laws, and in accordance with the constitutional ``separation of powers'' doctrine, it protects the legislative branch of government from an overreaching Executive. The Obama administration has ignored laws, failed to enforce laws, undermined laws, and changed laws by executive orders and administrative actions. These include laws covering health care, immigration, marriage, drugs, and welfare requirements. Other Presidents have issued more executive orders, but no President has issued so many broad and expansive executive orders that have stretched the Constitution to its breaking point. As for not enforcing laws, in 2011, the President instructed the Attorney General of the United States not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.…”