Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Monday that he’s thinking of a few thing Congress can do to counter President Obama’s executive overreach, including cutting off money for his vacations.
“Number one, my colleagues in the Senate have advise and consent, if they want to shut down the Senate over appropriations bills or ambassadorships or other things. The Constitution gives them the power of advise and consent. The Constitution gives us power over the purse,” Gowdy said on Fox. “So we have appropriation bills that are going to be coming to the House this spring. We ought to strip money away from this executive branch, because our framers gave us that exclusive right to do so. If one branch overreaches then maybe the other branch ought to stick up for itself.”
“Thirdly, we can go to the judicial branch. We do have standing when it comes to vote nullification, which is what Obamacare is. You can go to the judicial branch and ask them to stop. But most importantly, we can go to your viewers. Your voters — almost 500 representatives are up every two years. Our framers did that on purpose… You can fix executive overreach or legislative under reach by throwing them out.”
Gowdy said Obama continues to overreach because “because so far he has gotten away with it.”
“Last October, we weren’t persuasive enough. People don’t like the Affordable Care Act but they don’t like our tactic of shutting down the government,” he said. “OK. Fine. We got that. We still have appropriation bills that are coming. So what we ought to do is say, Mr. President, you want to run roughshod over the Constitution, we have the power of the purse. We’re not going to fund your pet projects. We’re not going to fund your green energy initiatives. We are not going it fund your vacations.”
When asked if they’d really cut off Obama’s vacation dough, Gowdy said, “Blank right, we are going to do it.”
“Yes, we’re going to do it. Yes. Because my mom made may be watching. You are blank right we are going to do it,” he added. “There are a host of my colleagues that are not just going to sit around and mope and cry because this president overreaches. We’re going to respond and we are going to respond in the appropriations process.”
The former federal prosecutor said he believes Obama will lose on the HHS mandate and recess appointment lawsuits. “He doesn’t have a good track record in court. We do have standing to sue under a theory of jury nullification. It’s very tough for Congress to sue the executive branch because the judicial branch doesn’t want to get involved,” Gowdy said.
“…But I don’t want to run into another branch of government. I want to assert what the framers gave us, which is the power of the purse. If he doesn’t get his act together, and frankly even if he does, we need to stop some of his pet projects.”
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