Jordan wants to curb presidential overreach

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LIMA — U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, maintains that President Barack Obama has made a habit of overreaching his authority with executive orders related to gun control and immigration, a habit that he says needs to be broken.

Jordan has been touring parts of his district, including making a stop at The Lima News on Wednesday discussing recent developments concerning gun control and the president’s recent orders. When it comes to why the president has taken it upon himself to act unilaterally to grant protection from deportation to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants, which Jordan said was one of his worst overreaches, or to tighten background checks on gun purchases, Jordan blames a lack of strong opposition.

“It’s on us not standing up to the president in as vigorous a way as we should,” he said. “Now it looks like the Supreme Court is going to look at the executive amnesty issue, which is great, but we can do more.”

One way to ramp up that message of opposition, Jordan said, is to hold government officials more accountable, even through rarely used means.

“I told a group last night that if you want to send a strong message, do something that hasn’t been done in over 100 years,” he said. “Take a high ranking official in the federal government, the head of an agency, who has engaged in wrong behavior, and truly hold them accountable by impeaching them.”

Jordan referred specifically to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who has been at the center of a lengthy controversy regarding his agency’s dealings with conservative-leaning organizations.

“We’ve co-sponsored the legislation, sponsored by (Oversight and Government Reform Committee) Chairman (Jason) Chaffetz to impeach the IRS commissioner,” he said. “I don’t think that’s been done since the 1880s.”

Jordan said he is hopeful that if this legislation were to go through, it would send a strong message to the president, perhaps putting a check on his executive orders.

“My dad had an old line on disciplining children, which was, ‘If you do it right, you don’t have to do it often,’” he said. “If we do this right in a fashion where we tell the IRS commissioner that you allowed documents to be destroyed with three preservation orders and two subpoenas in place and make the case, that will send a message to an executive branch that’s been overreaching.”

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By Craig Kelly

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Reach Craig Kelly at 567-242-0390 or on Twitter @Lima_CKelly.

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