Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2014: on Government Reform

Rick Santorum: Censure & lawsuit for too many executive actions

SANTORUM: What the president did was open up Pandora's box for every president in the future to say, "you know, Congress, if you're not going to work with me, then I'm not going to enforce the law, and beyond that, I'm going to actually create new law."

Q: So if it sets that terrible of a precedent and is unconstitutional, why not impeach?

SANTORUM: I believe that the Republicans--and I hope Democrats--would do something very strong in response.

Q: Like what?

SANTORUM: Well, they're suing the president. And they should go to the Supreme Court immediately.

Q: Court suits take a long time.

SANTORUM: Well, hopefully, you can get an expedited hearing on something of this significance. Secondly, I think they should try to defund this. They have the power in the Congress.

Q: But you're not talking impeachment?

SANTORUM: I know some people have talked about censure.

Ted Cruz: Executive actions override Congress & the Constitution

(VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: The actions I'm taking are not only lawful, they're the kinds of actions taking by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century.

Q: Senator, Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 took executive action to grant legal status to about a million and a half people who are in this country illegally. What's the difference?

CRUZ: The difference between Reagan and Bush is both of them were working with Congress and implementing congressional statutes. Congress can change the immigration law and the president can put congressional will into effect. The difference here is this is not a president who wants to work with Congress. Rather, this is a president who is openly defying Congress. [This] stops having a constitutional system of checks & balances, and we move just to unilateral executive authority. It's the power of a monarch

Mike Rounds: America is not broken, but Washington is

MIKE ROUNDS: Washington's dysfunctional. It's got to be fixed. America is not broken, but Washington is. And part of it says is that South Dakota common sense can help. It means you work side by side with other people to get the job done. I think the Republican majority now has an opportunity to show that we can actually govern, we can put together an agenda, and we can execute on it. That means getting results. It means you go back in and you take up on ObamaCare. You pass the Keystone X

Rand Paul: Supports early voting; but voter ID also ok

PAUL: I have mixed feelings. When I go in a government building, I have got to show my driver's license. So, I am not really opposed to it. I am opposed to it as a campaign theme. If you want to get the African-American vote, they think that this is suppression somehow and it's a terrible thing. I really think that we should restore the voting rights of those who had a previous conviction; that's where the real voting problem is. I'm not against early voting. I grew in Texas. We voted early for a month or two before elections for probably 20 years, and Texas is still a Republican state. But it's perception. The Republicans have to get beyond this perception that they don't want African-Americans to vote. Now, I don't think it's true. I'm not saying it's true. But by being for all these things, it reinforces a stereotype that we need to break down.

Bernie Sanders: Citizens United opens up the road to oligarchy

SANDERS: The Koch brothers and the other billionaires are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That is not a way you bring about change. We've got to mobilize the American people.

Q: If a billionaire agrees with you on issues are you okay with them participating in the process?

SANDERS: I think Citizens United will go down in history as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever. I think it is opening up the road to oligarchy, where the billionaires, like the Koch brothers--

Q: Left or right?

SANDERS: Left or right, but it's mostly right. It will always be. The Koch brothers are going to spend $400 million. Do you know what their agenda is? They want to end Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. More tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. Nobody in America wants that except the billionaire class. This is a real danger to American democracy.

Elizabeth Warren: It's THEIR money & power against OUR voices & votes

SEN. WARREN. Yeah.

Q: So what is your solution?

WARREN: Washington works for anyone who can hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers. It just doesn't work for regular families. They've got the concentration of money and power that makes sure that every rule works for those who are rich. What we have on the other side, is we've only got two things. We've got our voices and we've got our votes. And we've got to make sure we get heard. That's the only way we ever get a level playing field.

Q: Is your fight with President Obama or is it with the Republicans?

WARREN: I have had very strong and frankly, pretty public, disagreements with both the Bush administration and with the current administration particularly during the financial bailout over the treatment of the biggest banks. My view was there was too much--and still is--too much of tilting the playing field in their favor.

Newt Gingrich: Allow unlimited campaign contributions to anybody

Gingrich added, "The next step is the one Justice Clarence Thomas cited--candidates should be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from anybody. And you would, overnight, equalize the middle class and the rich."

Rahm Emanuel: My position on term limits is called elections

Q: Your predecessor Mayor Richard Daley was in office for 22 years. What was it like taking over a city when one man had so much control for so long?

EMANUEL: He was a great mayor. There are things he did that I would do differently. He acknowledged the public was ready for a change.

Q: Do you think someone should be able to be mayor for that long?

EMANUEL: I don't know. My position on term limits is called elections.

Q: Bill Clinton would still be president.

EMANUEL: Well, that is true.

Bernie Sanders: Underclass see the political deck stacked; and don't vote

One of the great tragedies that we face today politically is that most people have given up on the political process. They understand the political deck is stacked against them. They think there is no particular reason for them to come out and vote--and they don't.

Paul Ryan: Making law with executive orders circumvents Constitution

RYAN: It's not the number of executive orders, it's the scope of the executive orders. It's the fact that he is actually contradicting law like in the health care case, or proposing new laws without going through congress.

Q: So you think he's violating the constitution?

RYAN: We have an increasingly lawless presidency where he is actually doing the job of congress, writing new policies & new laws without going through congress. Presidents don't write laws, congress does. That's not his job.

Q: But if you think he's lawless, circumventing the constitution, are you going to move to impeach?

RYAN: No, I'm not. You have some court challenges going to the court this spring. But I think these executive orders are creating a dangerous trend.

Rand Paul: President should not bypass Congress with executive orders

PAUL: It sounds vaguely like a threat and I think it also has a certain amount of arrogance in the sense that one of the fundamental principles of our country were the checks and balances that it wasn't supposed to be easy to pass legislation. You had to debate and convince people. So, there's a lot of things the president's not allowed to do. President's not allowed to write or amend legislation. He's not allowed to initiate war. And he's not allowed to tell us when we're in recess and when we're not. He says, "oh, well, it's hard to get Congress to do anything." Well, yes, welcome to the real world. It's hard to convince people to get legislation through. It takes consensus. But that's what he needs to be doing is building consensus and not taking his pen and creating law.

Ted Cruz: Debt ceiling limits "blank check" of federal spending

CRUZ: Of course we should do something. We shouldn't just write a blank check. Five years ago, the national debt was $10 trillion. Today, it's over $17 trillion. It's grown nearly 70% with one president in five years. Ask any American outside of Washington, "Should we just keep raising the debt ceiling while doing nothing to have fundamental structural control of spending?" In the past, the debt ceiling has been the most effective lever point for real structural reforms whether it was Graham-Rudman, which did great job of getting government spending under control, or whether it was the Budget Control Act. Both of those came through the debt ceiling. And what the president is saying is he just wants a blank credit card to keep growing and growing the dealt. And I think that's irresponsible. I think it's irresponsible to our kids and grandkids to stick that debt on them, because we can't live within our means.