A constitutional crisis

There is no Waiting a Long Time or Commonsense Proposal Clause in the Constitution. The separation of powers does not have an expiration schedule — or didn’t until this president announced one. And the public doesn’t even believe that action is urgent or necessary: Various polls suggest that it opposes the president’s executive-action plans by a substantial margin.

Republicans would be right to stand for our system even if they did not have public opinion at their backs. But they do, and the planned Republican response looks far short of what the crisis demands. Yet Republicans at the highest levels appear uninterested in the options available to force the president to do his duty.

One possibility would be to restrict funding for the president’s proposed order. House Republicans should consider a bill to fund the government except for Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), the agency in the Department of Homeland Security responsible for implementing the president’s order, and perhaps a few other selected portions of the administration. They could then propose a bill funding these agencies, including in it a prohibition against executing the president’s amnesty. Democrats would have little excuse not to pass the former bill, and, were the president to sign it, both sides could proceed to a focused argument on immigration funding. If the president were to veto the larger bill, or Democrats to block it, a shutdown might occur — but the White House, or congressional Democrats, might end up shouldering the blame.