Anything The Executive Branch Can Do, Congress Can Try To Block

As the left has grown increasingly frustrated with inability to make headway on key points in Congress, a cottage industry has sprung up of trying to identify steps the Obama administration can take unilaterally. One such front that I heard a lot about at Netroots Nation was immigration and deportations, where Obama can obviously use his authority as chief executive to slow the pace of deportation, exercise various kinds of discretion, etc. So far, immigration reform advocates haven't made a ton of headway with the administration on this point, but they have gotten some traction on the idea that people shouldn't be deported back into dangerous situations.

But of course nothing is ever truly beyond the reach of congress, and Elise Foley reports that Rep Lamar Smith is working to roll back this limited discretion:

The bill is a political attempt to push back on Democrats, who are advocating for the president to end some deportations since major immigration reform remains nearly impossible. Although the HALT Act is unlikely to make it out of the House — and would almost certainly be vetoed if it passed the Senate — Smith is highlighting a controversial presidential power at the same time that Democrats urge Obama to use it, which may lead him to not assert his authority at all.

Democratic lawmakers have asked the president to use his executive power to stop certain people from being deported, such as families of U.S. service members and citizens, or young men and women attending college in the United States. Some have argued the government should redefine "extreme hardship," a classification used when determining whether a family member or spouse of an American citizen can remain in the United States, to allow families to remain together.

But Smith claims in a "Dear Colleague" letter that the White House is already using its discretion to avoid enforcing immigration law.

This is just a kind of reminder that the American system doesn't, in fact, lead to clearly delineated spheres of "separated" powers. There are, instead, complicated forms of interplay between them and what actually happens depends a great deal on how bold different actors are in using the different levers available to them. House Republicans seem inclined to be extremely bold in their use of congressional authority, while the Obama administration has from day one done a poor job of deploying their executive assets to maximum effect.