South Carolina Republican congressman Trey Gowdy — fresh off his ENFORCE the Law Act’s passage in the House — claimed that when Obama was a senator, he would’ve supported his bill, slamming the president’s change of position “based solely on what [his] title is.”
Gowdy’s bill would require the Obama administration to enforce laws as they appear on the books — stopping practices like refusing to enforce mandatory minimums or unilaterally changing Obamacare — or face a congressional lawsuit. President Obama has said he will veto the act if it reaches his desk (RELATED: Obama threatens to veto bill that would require administration to enforce laws).
The congressman appeared on Fox News Wednesday evening, just hours after his bill was passed. “In looking through the things that you said on the floor,” host Greta van Susteren began, “I suspect that Senator Obama — not President Obama — Senator Obama would’ve voted for this.”
“He would have,” Gowdy agreed. “I think the most illustrative quote was when he blamed the Supreme Court for this balance of power getting out of whack. He specifically blamed the Chief Justice, as Senator Obama.”
“And you hate to use the word duplicity,” the congressman continued. “But when you change your position based solely on what your title is, it either leads me to believe it wasn’t a deeply-held conviction in the first place, or maybe you’re engaging in a little bit of duplicity.”
“We want standing,” he later said. “Which is a big hurdle to overcome. The ability to even go to court, to seek redress. And we want the judicial branch to order the executive branch to uphold the law.”
Under current federal law, Congress and its members rarely have the standing to sue a presidential administration.
Susteren asked whether Gowdy expected his law to be “dead-on-arrival” after reaching the Democratic-controlled Senate. “Well, I didn’t expect five Democrats to vote for it today,” he replied. “I think with the current constitution of the Senate, it probably is on life support.”
“But the great thing about our Framers is, we have a chance to change out 33 or 34 of the senators every two years,” he added. “And my guess is this would be a 70 or 80 percent polling issue — do you think the executive branch should have to faithfully execute the law?”
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