Are Executive Orders legal?

In the wake of the Republican Congress' refusal to responsibly govern, more and more initiative has been picked up by the Executive Branch. Most recently, the President has taken up the slack of Republican indifference by issuing Executive Orders, whereby the President signs and issues an order directing that a law or policy be implemented. On December 20, 2014 the President issue his order implementing a new immigration policy.

The US Constitution was written with three distinct branches, each with specific powers. The seams of the 'separation of powers' are not perfect or clear: we have legislative oversight; judicial legislating; administrative courts; and executive signing statements (which purport to interpret a law, disobliging both Congress, which makes laws, and the Courts, which write precedent). An Executive Order is a rule or order issued by the president to an executive branch of the government and having the force of law. It is potentially one way of overstepping one's bounds, however it is useful in furthering policy.

The present Constitutional crisis is between the Democratic President, who just issued his executive order over immigration policy, and the Republican Congress, which has had a Senate passed immigration bill on its desk for a year and a half, and refuses to act. So the President just took a swing and hit the ball.

Now the Republicans are hissy-fitting all over the place:

Reuters News wrote:(Reuters) - Outrage may be the only thing that unites Republicans over President Barack Obama's immigration order.

While their blood is boiling over his decision to allow nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants to stay and work in the United States, they remain deeply divided over how to stop it.

In dozens of statements, speeches and interviews, Republicans have called Obama an "emperor," a "king", a "partisan bomb-thrower" and a violator of the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, Executive Orders have been used by presidents for decades and even centuries. But this is a divisive Congress, unwilling to engage in any compromise or exchange. So, their idea now is to shut down the government once again, by refusing to pass a budget:

Reuters News wrote:But a heated argument is raging among Republicans in Congress over the best response, with a sizable and vocal group of conservatives pressing to use a must-pass government spending bill to withhold funding for implementation of Obama's order easing deportation rules for millions of undocumented residents.

The move, one of the few options Republicans believe could be effective, comes at a high price: threatening another government shutdown that party leaders have vowed to avoid, just over a year after a 16-day closure inflicted heavy political damage on Republicans.

"The only method I know to deal with this, outside of legal proceedings, is the power of the purse string," said Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Now before I leave you, understand that lurking in the background is a huge volume of Hispanic voters who are most probably going to vote against Republicans, judging by the way Republicans have treated them in the past. It could send some big, big border states--read as: Texas, Arizona, Florida and even California (the largest plum of all)--into the loving arms of the Democratic Party. As with other efforts, the primary motive of Republicans in refusing to legalize the 'illegals,' is voter suppression.

As lil andy would say, discuss...

As far as the legality goes, it's my basic understanding that, as the head of the executive branch, it's the president's call as to how to execute the laws and policies of the United States. I don't think there's any legal problem here.

The Republicans saying this is a purely political move (with the benefits you illustrated above) are, as usual, sounding very sheltered, as they probably either don't know or don't care that families are really being broken up in the U.S. by deportation -- parents taken away from their children. They also don't seem to understand that the immigration system we have is broken -- I put up a link the other day that shows that people can easily wait 10-25 years to be processed through the system.

Finally, I just want to point out that California's a pretty solid Democratic state already -- the big prize would be Texas. When the Republicans lose Texas, they're no longer a national party in any sense of the phrase and will never win another presidential election.

Just to flesh that out a bit:

The Blue Wall is block of states that no Republican Presidential candidate can realistically hope to win. Tuesday that block finally extended to New Hampshire, meaning that at the outset of any Presidential campaign, a minimally effective Democratic candidate can expect to win 257 electoral votes without even trying. That’s 257 out of the 270 needed to win.

http://blog.chron.com/goplifer/2014/11/the-missing-story-of-the-2014-election/#28114101=0

Texas has 38 electoral votes, by far the most of any Republican state. If the GOP loses Texas, they're toast.

Yes, much of the immigration policy debate is about keeping Texas in the Republican fold. But the likes of Rick Perry is not going to hold that state very long.

Florida is a big state as well.

AT THE same time as a motley bunch of Repub' and Tea-bagger miscreants and troublemakers across their blue and "svinging" states ~ not just congressmen and governors, but also mayors and sheriffs, millionaire directors and corner store pleb's ~ are suing Obama for "un-Konstichushinal and un-American behaviour", in todays paper it is reported that at least TEN leading US university Legal academics have declared that the POTUS latest orders are A-OK legally, and nothing amiss...

AS EVER, the Repub's are continually "Pissing into the wind !" ~ they'll be sure to get most of their own back sooner or later..

Congress dropped the last lawsuit even before a judge got a look at it. Now they are filing another? As much as the Republican Congress is flummoxed, they have nowhere to go.

Contards can no longer compete for the big one.