What Can We Expect From the New GOP Senate?

By Phyllis Schlafly, CP Op-Ed Contributor Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled 'No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom.' — Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled "No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom."

Republicans won a big victory in the midterm elections, so big that the media are calling it a "wave." Is President Obama planning to cope with this by "working together" and "bipartisanship"? The New York Times gave us his answer on the front page.

Barack Obama arrogantly announced the day after the election that he is "vowing to bypass Congress and use his executive authority to handle the nation's immigration system." Obama renewed his commitment "to act on his own to allow millions of undocumented immigrants (i.e., illegal aliens) to stay in this country."

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) responded by saying, that's "like waving a red flag in front of a bull." That's right, Mitch. It's surely not a route to bipartisanship or working together with the newly elected Republicans.

The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of closing our borders, building the fence that Congress approved years ago, and rejecting admission to our country of illegal aliens and persons with awful diseases.

Instead of issuing an order that people coming from Ebola-infected countries will not be allowed to deplane in the United States (which Obama could easily do and would cost nothing), he is now asking Congress to appropriate $6 billion to combat Ebola in West Africa! That's so offensive that it's hard to believe he said it, but if the New York Times reported it, he must have said it.

Maybe the new Republican majority doesn't have the power to stop nonsense announcements, but Republicans surely can refuse to appropriate any funds for Obama's harebrained schemes such as assuming the burden of curing disease in Africa. That's not what we elected him for.

In its report, The Wall Street Journal certified that Obama's executive amnesty will give work permits to illegal immigrants, taking jobs directly from struggling Americans. The Senate's expert on immigration issues, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), added, "Based on the USCIS contract bid and statements from USCIS employees, we know this executive immigration order is likely to be broader in scope than anyone has imagined."

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Obama will especially benefit technology companies that use large numbers of foreign workers, even though 11 million Americans with STEM degrees don't have jobs in those fields. Research by Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman indicates that, since 2000, all net gains in employment among the working-age have gone entirely to immigrant workers.

We cannot allow Obama to pack the Supreme Court, or continue to pack other federal courts, with any more left-wing supremacist judges. If the Republican Senate lets Obama get by with naming even one Supreme Court appointment, he will effectively rule our country for the next 30 years -- and that's not what the American people voted for.

There are still two more months of the Harry Reid Senate, known as the Lame Duck Session, and that's time for lots of judicial mischief. Republicans should adopt a strategy used previously in similar situations to say there simply isn't enough time for the Senate to do "due diligence" in investigating any new Obama appointees, especially for positions so important as a federal judgeship.

We cannot allow Obama to violate the Constitution under the guise of what he calls "executive action." The U.S. Constitution gives the president "the executive power," but clearly states that "All legislative Powers" are "vested in Congress," and one of those important powers is the power over immigration.

So, leaning on our new Republican members of Congress to prevent Obama from taking any more unconstitutional actions in Congress's Lame Duck Session is an important part of the task before us. Obamacare should be on the table for revision since, in the 2012 elections, every victorious Republican campaigned against Obamacare, and of the 60 Senate Democrats who voted for Obamacare when it passed, 29 are no longer in office.

But that's not all. We have to think ahead about who we want the Republican Party to nominate for president in 2016, and we should get started now. The wealthy RINO's who are trying to be kingmakers have already started their exclusive dinner parties to vet candidates.

You cannot be a player in choosing the next Republican nominee for president unless you know about the anti-democratic tactics the powers that be might use to force on us, such as demanding a globalist big-spending president, or another loser like the candidates they foisted on us in the past. Your best source of information is the new expanded 50th Anniversary edition of "A Choice Not An Echo."

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled "No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom." You can read more of her writings at eagleforum.org.