Obama was well within his authority to act as he did. He also hasn't done anything other presidents did in the past.
That is incorrect. Let us zero in on the single example of the welfare reform act. (Oh, it occurs to me, when the President took over GM and screwed over the bondholders, he has no legal authority to do that, and it overturned two centuries of legal precedent when he did so).
Now, Section 1115 of 42 U.S.C. 1315 (the Social Security Law) allows the administration to waive requirements with the "specified parts of various laws", so long as those portions are
listed in Section 1115. It is
explicitly against the law for the administration to waive requirements in statutory law that are
not listed in Section 1115, or described inside the legislation itself as waiverable. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) has one section that was added to Section 1115 of 42 U.S.C. 1315, section 402, which addresses the formats with which States must report compliance with the rest of the Act. Section 407 of the PRWORA deals with the work requirements. Not only does the legislation
explicitly not describe anything within it as waiverable, it strips it
out of Section 1115 of 42 U.S.C 1315 in order to
keep it ever from becoming so. The Obama administrations' waivering of section 407 of the PRWORA is therefore in violation of
both that law
and 42 U.S.C. 1315.
This is not opinion - this is the
law. My
opinion is that the administration simply made the bet that nobody
cares and that no one will be able to demonstrate standing in time to put a stay in prior to reaping the electoral benefits.
