Jeffrey worked in the Reagan administration. Now, his piece prints out to four pages, but I don't need that. What is the difference between Reagan and Obama? Reagan -- in fact, folks, I'm almost speechless here as I prepare to explain to you just how big the left is distorting this. Ronald Reagan signed a piece of legislation. It was the Simpson-Mazzoli Act. It was 1986. Congress debated and passed a law to grant amnesty to three million illegal immigrants, and Reagan signed it. They are saying that's exactly what Obama's gonna do. They are claiming that Reagan signing legislation, thereby making it legal, is the same thing as an Obama executive order. It breathtaking what they're trying to say here.
Reagan had a statute behind him. The statute was called Simpson-Mazzoli. The very law that Reagan had signed was signed after it was passed by Congress. What Obama is about to do is write a law, or rewrite a statue all by himself. You think that Gruber was exaggerating? They do think you're stupid. They really do believe that you are stupid. They really believe that they can make you think that Reagan signing a piece of legislation is identical to Obama writing and signing an executive order. "Well, Reagan did it. Well, technically Reagan granted amnesty, why are you complaining? Reagan granted amnesty, and George H. W. Bush, he granted amnesty, so Obama's not doing anything different."
Well, it's totally different because there is no legislation. The president cannot write law. The president can't make it up. Whether Congress is a bulwark or not. The Constitution does not say, "In case the Congress refuses to cooperate with the president, the president may, in that case, create his own law." It doesn't say that. And Obama knows it doesn't say that because he'd been out there on TV in previous years telling angry Hispanics that he's not a dictator -- ahem -- that he's not an emperor -- ahem -- and he can't do it. And that's been his excuse all along. He doesn't have the power to do it.