Shifting the balance of power

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the one that says gays can't be fired simply because they are gay, is going nowhere in the GOP controlled House. That has led Ari Ezra Waldman to discuss the possibility that Obama will implement ENDA, at least for federal contractors, through executive order. Obama might do this to show what he can get done without Congress.

Some progressives might say that Obama is following the lead of Bush II in amassing power in the executive branch. But a Congress that blocks everything and does nothing also shifts the balance of power by giving themselves no power.

That may well be the conservatives' goal: an absent federal government can do no harm when you have no faith in the federal government. But, progressives believe in the transformative power of government and, as such, the executive should act where Congress should, but will not.

And creating ENDA through executive order is a way for Obama to show that transformational power.