Cornyn: Executive Waiver is No Way To Run a Democracy

President Obama keeps violating his own healthcare law and "applying it selectively" instead of repealing it like he should, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said in an editorial.

Normally, if both the president and Congress find problems with a law, they come together and try to fix it, the Texas Republican wrote Friday on National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/355988/obamacare-and-rule-law-senator-john-cornyn .

"What the president is doing with Obamacare is quite different: He is effectively picking and choosing which parts of the law to enforce, based on convenience and political expediency," Cornyn explained.

And this isn't the first time Obama done this, when he deems a law or portion of a law inconvenient or unpopular, the Texas Senator wrote, citing the Chrysler bankruptcy when United Auto Workers were given more for their pension funds than the secured bondholders, when he "made unconstitutional appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," and when the president decided not to enforce "certain immigration laws."

"Government by executive waiver is no way to run a democracy," Cornyn said. "Our Constitution obliges the president to make sure that all laws are 'faithfully executed.' Under President Obama, inconvenient or unpopular legal requirements have repeatedly been swept aside by executive fiat."

"Last month, for example, President Obama unilaterally delayed the requirement that large employers provide health insurance to their workers, and he also delayed various oversight provisions," Cornyn wrote, detailing the "violations."

"More recently, he intervened to protect the health-care benefits received by members of Congress, and his administration confirmed that it will delay enforcement of a cap on out-of-pocket costs."

The danger, Cornyn concluded, is a greatly weakened democracy.

"The principle at stake here is much larger than Obamacare: It's about the constitutional separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government."