Gear down there big rig. The President is entitled to decide for himself what the Constitution requires him to do. He takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to obey the courts or accept all existing statutes as valid. This is painful while Obama is President, but it might be handy later.
Consider that a Republican President taking office in 2013 could immediately issue an executive order forbidding implementation of Obamacare, eliminating all positions it created and impounding any funds appropriated under it. Repeal could come later in due course. Sounds good to me.
He/She couldn't do that. An Executive Order cannot undo existing law see: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 US 579 (1952) . BUT, he/she could order the DoJ to drop its legal defense of Obamacare. And in fact, if the new president felt that Obamacare was unconstitutional, it would be their moral imperative to not defend it, in a court of law.
Obama has no authority to decide what is constitutional. He is usurping the powers of the Supreme Court, which is the body appointed precisely to determine what is constitutional and what not.
This clever ploy of announcing that the President and his Justice Department have decided on their own that a law is unconstitutional is probably meant to keep it from ever being submitted to Supreme Court review.
Wake up and smell the sulphur, folks. Obama has NO authority to do this. He is trying to wrest authority from the Judiciary, which is exactly what Hugo Chavez and every tinpot dictator in Latin America and Africa has done.
I don’t agree. The President could immediately ask for a repeal from Congress.
But, he could only WITHDRAW funding from his Cabinet agencies for implementation as an immediate action. That could be handled by a Presidential directive. Ask Zero how handy that Pres. directive is BTW.