I think that JD Barleycorn and ExNyer have a point here. It is dangerous to let a President pick and choose - we could get a conservative someday who guts this very law, and lets the insurance companies run wild!!
Article II Clause 5: Caring for the faithful execution of the law
The President must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
[17] This clause in the Constitution imposes a duty on the President to take due care while executing laws and is called the
Take Care Clause,
[18] also known as the
Faithful Execution Clause.
[19] This clause is meant to ensure that a law is faithfully executed by the President,
[18] even if he disagrees with the purpose of that law.
[20] By virtue of his executive power, the President may execute the law and control the law execution of others. Under the Take Care Clause, however, the President must exercise his law-execution power to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
[19] Addressing the
North Carolina ratifying convention, William Maclaine declared that the Faithful Execution Clause was "one of the [Constitution's] best provisions."
[19] If the President "takes care to see the laws faithfully executed, it will be more than is done in any government on the continent; for I will venture to say that our government, and those of the other states, are, with respect to the execution of the laws, in many respects mere ciphers."
[19] President George Washington interpreted this clause as imposing on him a unique duty to ensure the execution of federal law. Discussing
a tax rebellion, Washington observed, "it is my duty to see the Laws executed: to permit them to be trampled upon with impunity would be repugnant to" that duty.
[19]
According to former
United States Assistant Attorney General Walter E. Dellinger III the Supreme Court and the Attorneys General have long interpreted the Take Care Clause as standing for the proposition that the President has no inherent constitutional authority to suspend the enforcement of the laws, particularly of statutes.
[21] Quite the contrary: The Take Care Clause demands that the President obey the law, the Supreme Court said in
Humphrey's Executor v. United States, and repudiates any notion that he may dispense with the law's execution.
[22] In
Printz v. United States,
521 U.S. 898 (1997), the Supreme Court explained how the President executes the law: "The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the President, it says, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," Art. II, §3, personally and through officers whom he appoints (save for such inferior officers as Congress may authorize to be appointed by the "Courts of Law" or by "the Heads of Departments" who with other presidential appointees), Art. II, §2."
The President possesses wide discretion in deciding how and even when to enforce laws. He also has a range of interpretive discretion in deciding the meaning of laws he must execute. When an appropriation provides discretion, the President can gauge when and how appropriated moneys can be spent most efficiently. However, the President may not prevent a member of the executive branch from performing a ministerial duty lawfully imposed upon him by Congress. (See
Marbury v. Madison (1803); and Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes (1838)). Nor may the President take an action not authorized either by the Constitution or by a lawful statute. (See
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)). Finally, the President may not refuse to enforce a constitutional law, or "cancel" certain appropriations, for that would amount to an extra-constitutional veto or suspension power.
[19]
Some Presidents have claimed the authority under this clause to impound money appropriated by Congress. President Jefferson, for example, delayed the expenditure of money appropriated for the purchase of gunboats for over a year. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his successors sometimes refused outright to expend appropriated money.
[19] The Supreme Court, however, has held that impoundments without Congressional authorization are unconstitutional.
[23]
It has been asserted that the President's responsibility in the "faithful" execution of the laws entitles him to suspend the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus[
citation needed]. Article One provides that the privilege may not be suspended save during times of rebellion or invasion, but it does not specify who may suspend the privilege. The Supreme Court ruled that Congress may suspend the privilege if it deems it necessary. During the
American Civil War, President
Abraham Lincoln suspended the privilege, but, owing to the vehement opposition he faced, obtained congressional authorization for the same.[
citation needed] Since then, the privilege of the writ has only been suspended upon the express authorization of Congress.
In
Mississippi v. Johnson, 71
U.S. 475 (1867), the Supreme Court ruled that the judiciary may not restrain the President in the execution of laws. In that case the Supreme Court refused to entertain a request for an injunction preventing President Andrew Johnson from executing the
Reconstruction Acts, which were claimed to be unconstitutional. The Court found that "[t]he Congress is the legislative department of the government; the President is the executive department. Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed, are, in proper cases, subject to its cognizance."
[24] Thus, the courts cannot bar the passage of a law by Congress, though it may strike down such a law as unconstitutional. A similar construction applies to the executive branch.
