Mike Lee

I was personally somewhat concerned when we got involved in military action in Libya without any prior consultation of Congress.

To legislate is to make rules, rules carrying the force of generally applicable law.

the Constitution itself gives each House of Congress the prerogative of determining its own schedule

These things happen not because we have had bad men as Presidents. We haven't, we have had good men, that includes our current President.

the Constitution in its opening line, right after the Preamble in Article I, Section 1 says that all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

Here with this Executive order we have what is in effect a piece of legislation. It didn't go through Congress.

When the Administration starts to overstep its bounds and uses administrative agencies in a way that restricts on fundamental First Amendment freedoms you are seeing a serious problem and you are seeing a serious overreach of Executive…

Political philosophers for centuries have believed that centralization of power brings about an unacceptable risk of tyranny.

But when the executive branch contravenes, contradicts that policy as established in Federal statute, that we have the wrong body in effect legislating, the executive branch rather than the legislative branch.

It is thus all the more necessary and important that Congress continue to exercise its constitutional role and to check this President's abuse of power wherever it sees that occurring.

Making sure there is a religious exemption here would not in my opinion cause either of the two problems that have been suggested.

whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, whether you are pro-immigration reform or anti-immigration reform, especially if you are a Member of Congress, and in any event if you favor the rule…

Congress is free, the Federal Government is free to grant religious exceptions and doing so does not amount to an establishment clause violation.

President Obama again abused Executive power when earlier this year he announced that he would stop enforcing key provisions of the Immigration Nationality Act.

We cannot ignore abuses of power because if we ignore them then they become part of the established practice and tradition within the constitutional system and that is dangerous.

The Senate does in fact have control over its own calendar. Article 1 makes that pretty clear.

How does that end up impacting the Department of Justice's ability to do other things that it needs to do?

Doesn't that create kind of a free-rider problem that we can expect to continue to result in the continued expansion of this kind of problem?

Historically, you know, these kinds of offenses that would have been prosecuted by States would have resulted in convictions within the State penal system.

The fact that we have a higher incarceration rate in the United States generally does not necessarily mean that we are just tougher on people.

In order to change that, we are going to need a change in policy, probably a change in legislation.

That is up to each State to decide, what do you feel in your State is the level of voter participation that you need to have to make the system work for your State.

I believe this Committee can assist State and local governments with ideas as to how to more efficiently manage the connection between energy and water.

I have long shared, by the way, your concerns with States that have contested partisan elections to fill the vacancy at the outset because I think it is difficult to reconcile that with the need for judicial independence.

If the Governor feels she did not get good names here, she can reject the whole batch and ask for more names.