EDITORIAL: Selective non-enforcement threatens democracy
However, the separation of powers that is the hallmark of our system of government is now in grave danger. The executive branch routinely jumps its constitutional guardrails, oversteps its bounds, and seizes the prerogatives of the other two branches while failing to perform its own basic function.
In just the latest example, the
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It's the court's job to decide if Paxton is correct. But in the meantime, the ACA--whether you love it or hate it--is still the law of the land.
The
In a heated 2014 exchange with
Goodlatte countered that the administration's "selective non-enforcement of an Act of
The same thing is also happening at the state level.
What goes around in politics eventually comes around, and no politician should be surprised when the same tactic they used to gain a partisan advantage today winds up biting them tomorrow, such as the
But the damage done by selective non-enforcement of duly enacted laws goes much deeper than that. It threatens democracy. By effectively nullifying laws currently on the books, attorneys general at both the federal and state level are in effect silencing the voices of millions of people who voted for the people who passed those same laws and signed them into law.
It's pretty simple. It's up to the legislative branch to pass the laws and the judicial branch to decide which laws are constitutionally unsound. The executive branch's role is to enforce the laws as written, not as they wish they were written. There are acceptable ways to change bad laws. This is not one of them.
It does no good for citizens to go through the motions to elect legislators and members of
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