Mr. Goodlatte, Your Cart's Before Your Horse

So this came into my email box this morning from the good Squire Goodlatte:

NEXT WEEK: On Tuesday, December 2, at 1PM, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the unconstitutionality of President Obama's executive actions on immigration.

Notice that this hearing is not about immigration policy or the need for legislative solutions to this important problem. It's not even about the effectiveness or merit of Mr. Obama's executive actions.

Mr. Goodlatte and the House Tea Party caucus have declared the executive actions unconstitutional and will now use the power of the Judiciary Committee to prove it.  This is generally known to students of history as an inquisition. A less draconian term might be hyper-partisanship.  In reality, it's a distraction, and excuse not to govern.

There's a serious problem in our country with the confluence of the need for the economic engine of immigration and the radical nativism espoused by Mr. Goodlatte, friends in Congress, and the folks that voted them into office.  Instead of trying to solve the problem, we're going to have an inquisition.

Nakedly partisan governance is ugly.

Then there is this:

There is an adage every young lawyer learns: If you have the law, pound the law; if you have the facts, pound the facts. But if you have neither, pound the table.

And these results from a Latino Decisions Poll conducted last week:

The results were staggering. A whopping 89 percent support the president’s executive action — 68 percent of them strongly. Just 10 percent oppose it.

And finally this from The Federalist Society via freethoughtsblog.com.

The Federalist Society held their annual conference last week and a panel of conservative legal scholars agreed that President Obama does have the authority to defer some deportations, partly because of inherent executive authority and partly because Congress wrote the immigration laws to give the president such authority. 

 The decent and law-abiding Mr Goodlatte should perhaps reconsider his statement?

Interestingly, in the very same email, Mr. Goodlatte proudly displays an executive action by President Lincoln...obviously not unconstitutional.

More work to do.....