“We are unfortunately witnessing a constitutional crisis,” said Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) on Megyn Kelly’s Fox show last night. “What President Obama is doing is he is defying the law, he’s defying the Constitution.”
“This was a referendum on amnesty and the American people overwhelmingly said ‘We don’t want Obamacare, it’s a disaster it’s hurting the American people, and we don’t want amnesty’ and I’m sorry to say, the President is behaving in an unprecedented way.”
“There is not, in recent times, any parallel for a president repudiated by the voters, standing up and essentially telling the voters to go jump in a lake.”
Cruz says he has a two-part plan to “use the Constitutional authority that we are given [in Congress] as checks and balances to reign in a despotic executive.”
Cruz said his first step would be: “The new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should stand up and say, ‘if you disregard the Constitution, if you disregard the law, if you issue this executive amnesty the new Congress for the next two years will not confirm a single nomination, judicial or executive, other than vital national security positions, until you end this illegal amnesty.’”
Cruz: “Step No. 2 is we need to use the power of the purse. We need to systematically pass appropriations legislation funding the Department of Defense, funding the VA, funding one department after another after another. And then once the vital functions are funded, we need to pass appropriations with riders specifically limiting the power of the Congress and the power of the president to spend money on illegal amnesty.”
And if Obama reacted by forcing a government shutdown?
"A presidential temper tantrum is not a rational response,” said Cruz.
“That would be a wrong and irresponsible response – a presidential temper tantrum is not a rational response,” said Cruz. “If you want to change immigration law, and I think we need common sense immigration reform, the way to do it is the president has to work with Congress.”
“Obama has said that [he wants to work with Congress] repeatedly, at least 25 times according to our count,” Kelly said. “Boy, has he done a 180.”
Cruz: “If the President goes forward with this, if he goes forward unilaterally defying the Congress elected by the people, defying the American voters, then it’s incumbent upon Republicans in Congress to use every single Constitutional tool we have to defend the rule of law to reign in a President so that the President does not become an unaccountable monarch imposing his own policies in defiance of the American people.”