President Obama has made little mystery of what he wants from Congress in the lame-duck session before the end of the year. Less clear — and more central to his long-term standing with both the public and lawmakers — is just how much he wants to flex his executive authority.
In the closing weeks of 2014, the president has called on lawmakers to approve additional spending to fight Ebola in West Africa, a budget for the rest of the fiscal year and authorization to use military force against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
The president also wants to see at least a handful of his long-stalled nominations confirmed before Democrats lose control of the upper chamber, but has recognized that his most prominent pick, attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch, will have to wait until 2015 for confirmation.
With the parameters of immediate legislative deals already defined, the president must decide how far to go on immigration and foreign policy, two areas in which he will take major action with little input from Congress.
Conservatives are already bracing for a showdown with the White House.
“The president is not turning back from a confrontational posture with Congress,” said Frank Donatelli, White House political director under President Reagan. “This is in line with what he did after other electoral defeats in 2010. There are disquieting signs.”
The president further stoked the expectations of immigration reform advocates when he decided to delay his promised executive action until after the midterm elections.
Obama, who has ignored GOP pleas to shelve those plans in the wake of his second midterm shellacking, could defer deportations for millions of people living in the United States illegally. Some immigration advocates have said they expect to see as many as 5 million illegal immigrants granted relief from deportations, a move that would certainly test the limits of Obama’s executive authority.
Under more modest proposals, Obama could expand the deferred sentences given to immigrants eligible under the Dream Act or instruct law enforcement officials to deport only the most violent criminals.
With Obama’s final election behind him, many of his supporters say there is little downside to moving ahead with proposals that will enrage Republicans.
“We’ve answered the question whether the president has the authority to grant relief — he does,” insisted Jessica Karp Bansal, staff attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “We’ve answered the question whether there is a moral imperative for him act — there is. The only remaining question is, how many more will be deported before he does something?”
On foreign matters, the president is looking to reach a nuclear deal with Iran in the face of staunch opposition from Republicans and even some Democrats.
Obama has remained mum on the question of whether an accord would allow him to lift sanctions overwhelmingly passed by Congress, but his advisers have suggested that suspending many of those economic penalties would serve as an initial step of an agreement with Iran.
“I’d rather have no deal than a bad deal because what we don’t want to do is lift sanctions and provide Iran legitimacy but not have the verifiable mechanisms to make sure that they don’t break out and produce a nuclear weapon,” Obama insisted recently.
However, the president’s critics say he is so desperate for a second-term win on foreign policy that he is willing to accept an agreement that emboldens Iran and weakens the American negotiating position with other nations harboring nuclear aspirations.
And they contend that Obama would further erode his standing with influential members of his own party.
“That’s when I think you could really see Democrats turn on him,” said one Senate GOP aide of Obama inking a deal with Iran that suspends sanctions passed by Congress. “I’m sure the White House would declare almost any deal a victory. But it would come at a huge cost. Democrats will raise hell over this.”
