Senator Vitter Says Executive Orders Defeat Constitution’s Purpose

US Senator David Vitter joined 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today to discuss the Washington Navy Yard shootings, Obamacare and the upcoming budget talks.

We started our conversation by asking Senator Vitter why Aaron Alexis was allowed to maintain his Secret security clearance after seeking treatment for hearing voices in his head, giving him easy access to the Navy Shipyard where he killed 12 people.  In response Senator Vitter said,

There will be a lot of investigation focused on security clearances.  He had a clearance so that's how he got on the compound properly in that sense.  The question is why was he allowed to get a security clearance.

We mentioned to Senator Vitter that White House spokesman Jay Carney yesterday said action to prevent more gun related tragedies might be taken in the form of Executive Action if Congress did not act.  To that Senator Vitter said,

I don't know what they're talking about but they sure as heck should not be talking about tampering in any way, shape or form with constitutional rights or going beyond his constitutional authority and I share your concerns because this President has done that over and over again.

 

Senator Vitter along with Senators Mike Enzi and Dean Heller have introduced legislation that will affect all government employees including the President and all members of Congress.  Vitter explained,

It's a bill we call 'No Washington exemptions from Obamacare'.  It says, whatever Obamacare says will apply to all members of Congress, all Congressional staff, the President, the Vice-President and all their appointees have to live by exactly the same rules...The President issued another one of these illegal Executive orders to bail out Congress and to take all of the sting out of Obamacare for Congress and our staffs only.  He did this without authority and it's contrary to the Obamacare provision and that's what we need to fix.

When asked if Congress would finally approve a budget this session Senator Vitter replied,

We're trying.  We have a budget control act that is ratcheting down spending.  We need to live by that and we need to deal with that.  We need to have folks up here in Washington who want to minimize any pain of that and not do what they're doing in the Administration which is actually maximizing pain and disruption because they think that will get them more money and higher spending levels.

 

You can listen to the entire interview to hear all of the discussion: