Sidestepping Congress

Obama is announcing a new executive order that will halt the deportation of illegal immigrants who were brought here as children, implementing a portion of the “Dream Act” that Congress has failed to pass for the past couple of years.

While I like the action itself, of course, or at least don’t dislike it, there are a couple of objections that come to mind. The first is that I have always disliked governance by executive order, especially when it regards policy which Congress has declined to enact. It doesn't matter to me why Congress has declined; if Congress is broken it is up to the American people to fix it, not just sit back and cheer as the chief executive becomes more and more imperial. We are happy when a President is sidestepping Congress with executive orders that we like, which strikes me as a little hypocritical since we are so unhappy when one is doing the same thing with executive orders which we dislike.

My other objection regards my cynicism regarding campaign timing. After deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace for the first 3+ years of his term, he suddenly reverses himself with this policy just when he is courting the Hispanic vote in the upcoming election. I am not a fan of enacting policy based on campaign politics, even when I like the policy.