Take Care Clause

                The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the “Take Care Clause.”  This clause is currently being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court.

                Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times said that some scholars call this clause “the Constitution’s charge to presidents to `take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’  That clause has been read to be both empowering to presidents, emboldening them with independent authority to see through the execution of laws, but also as a check – that, in the end, he carry out laws rather than write them.”   

                Continuing, Dinan wrote, “The Constitution was ratified more than two centuries ago, and in all that time no president had ever tested the limits of executive power enough to force the Supreme Court to rule whether he has lived up to the founders’ command that the laws be `faithfully executed.’

                “Until now.           

                “When the justices convene Monday morning, they will hear what is shaping up to be the biggest case of the term, and perhaps one of the most consequential in a generation, as they consider whether President Obama has overstepped his constitutional powers by trying to grant a tentative deportation amnesty to up to 5 million illegal immigrants."

                “`In 225 years, the Supreme Court has never had occasion to ask the president whether he has reneged on his oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.  However, with pens and phones replacing checks and balances, the Supreme Court is now poised to break new constitutional ground in order to preserve our embattled separation of powers,’ said Josh Blackman, associate professor at the South Texas College of Law, who has followed the case from the start and filed amicus briefs opposing Mr. Obama’s claim of powers.”

                Twenty-five states, led by Texas, are “arguing that they suffered economic harm from the amnesty and that it would likely lead to even more illegal immigrants.  The states said Mr. Obama broke administrative law and immigration law, and violated the Constitution.

                “Lower courts sided with the states and halted the amnesty on statutory grounds, and never reached the constitutional questions.  But the justices, in what Mr. Blackman said was a first, asked both sides to also file briefs on the Take Care Clause.”

                You can read more details of the case here.  This sounds like a case we need to watch.  It may be a “bell weather” case in telling us the direction our nation will go.