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Sen. Mike Lee to Newsmax: 'Congress Has Stopped Legislating'

 

By    |   Tuesday, 28 June 2016 11:04 PM EDT

Sen. Mike Lee told Newsmax TV on Tuesday that "Congress has for decades stopped legislating" — and, as such, merely "passes homework assignments for executive-branch agencies."

"Congress no longer passes real laws in many instances," the first-term Utah Republican told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth in an interview.

Lee's 2015 book — "Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document" — is now in paperback.

"Instead of passing a law explaining how we're going to clean up the air, they pass a law saying 'we will have clean air,'" Lee said.

Then, the Environmental Protection Agency "gets to decide what clean air is, what pollution is, what are acceptable levels of pollution — and EPA gets to enforce those laws."

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He said he wrote the book "to restore the twin protections of liberty": federalism and the separation of powers among the three branches of government.

"We've deviated dangerously from both of these protections," Lee told Hayward.

"With federalism, we're at the point that now the powers in the federal government that used to be described as few and defined … and the powers of the state were few and indefinite, we've turned that on its head.

"Now, the powers of Congress are few and indefinite and those of the states are few and defined."

And with the separation of powers, "most of the laws … that exist within the federal government are now made by executive-branch bureaucrats."

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Sen. Mike Lee told Newsmax TV on Tuesday that "Congress has for decades stopped legislating" — and, as such, merely "passes homework assignments for executive-branch agencies."
mike lee, congress, stopped, legislating
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2016-04-28
Tuesday, 28 June 2016 11:04 PM
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