Bloomberg urges Obama to defy Congress, implement gun control by executive action

From: Campus Reform

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday told a group of John Hopkins students that President Obama ought to sidestep the wishes of Congress and order swift new executive gun control measures.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that President Obama should implement a series of gun control measures through executive action.“There are steps that President Obama can take without congressional approval at any time he chooses with just one stroke of the pen,” Bloomberg told the mixed audience of students and scholars, speaking at the “Gun Policy Summit” at John Hopkins University.

Bloomberg’s remarks came hours before President Obama argued in a rare press conference that executive privileges afforded him the power to implement some federal gun control measures without the permission of Congress.

“My understanding is the Vice President is going to provide a range of steps that we can take to reduce gun violence,” President Obama told the White House Press Corps. “Some of them will require legislation, some of them I can accomplish through executive action.”

Since the Newtown Massacre late last year, the White House has eyed legal options for mandating comprehensive gun control as House Republican leadership has signaled reluctance to even allow such legislation to reach the floor.

Bloomberg also recommended to Vice President Biden a four tiered plan for strengthening existing weapons laws.

‘Sometimes we have to step outside the boundaries of the Constitution'

From: WashingtonExaminer.com

Environmentalists want to ban hydraulic fracturing in Las Vegas, N.M., and the surrounding county and they don’t plan to let the United States Constitution stop them.

“What people don’t understand is sometimes we have to step outside the boundaries of the Constitution to get things done,” Paula Hern, a board member with Community for Clean Water Air and Earth, told the ABQ Journal. “Laws are made to protect corporations and we need laws that protect Mother Earth – earth, air and water.”

Hern was defending a “community rights ordinance” banning fracking that the Las Vegas (N.M.) City Council passed but the mayor refused to sign. “The way it reads, it will supersede everything – our city charter, state and federal laws,” said Mayor Alfonso Ortiz.

City attorney Dave Romero defended the mayor’s position. “To sign a document that declares those sacred documents — the city charter, the New Mexico Constitution and the US Constitution — are inapplicable would violate the oath of office [the mayor] swore to uphold,” Romero argued. “[H]idden within the ordinance are radical, inappropriate statements that essentially claim that no other entity governs when it comes to this particular ordinance,” adding that “It takes away rights of due process and property.”

CCWAE’s Lee Einer said that the mayor should “Let it play out in court.”