non-enforcement
Taking Care That the Law Be Fitfully Executed
Carrying out the law is the core duty of the President. And it’s being openly violated.
The parameters of presidential power have been debated since soon after George Washington took office. But the Constitution makes at last one thing crystal clear: the President must “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This is a task to which the current incumbent, it can be safely said\, has not applied himself.
The “take care” clause is reinforced by the very terminology used to describe the President’s authority, the clause vesting the “executive power” in the President. That’s a clause much beloved of believers in the unitary executive. The word “executive” traces back to exsequii, meaning to carry out or follow (ex meaning “out”, sequii meaning “follow”). Faithful obedience to Congress hasn’t exactly been a hallmark of the current Administration. Whatever it is that Trump is faithfully executing, it’s not the laws of the United States. Unless, a bit darkly, you were to take “execute” in the modern sense of killing off, not in the constitutional sense of carrying out.
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