Bishop Votes Against Massive Expansion of Executive Power

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Rep. Dan Bishop (NC-09) voted against H.R.7108, the Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act, as it grants more unchecked powers to the Executive branch:

"I voted against the Russia trade relations adjustment bill yesterday because it is the latest example of this body irresponsibly granting limitless and interminable power to the Executive that has so diminished Congress and distorted Constitutional government. This is the exact same playbook that allowed two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the damaging pandemic emergency powers exercised the past two years plus. Against Russia and Belarus, the bill hands to the President unilateral tariff-setting authority that remains until Congress musters a 2/3 majority to retake it. Yet, the bill sets no conditions or requirements for the WTO but timidly "encourage[s]" that globalist body to suspend these aggressors' "trade concessions" and to "consider further steps." Extending well beyond the Ukraine crisis in both time and scope, the bill permanently repeals the sunset on the Magnitsky Act while vastly expanding the Executive's power to sanction foreign persons anywhere in the world for any reason. No longer is the President limited to exercising that power for ‘extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,' but can now paralyze the economic rights of any foreign person for any "serious human rights abuse," which is not even defined. I remain ready and willing to supply Ukraine's defense effort and to sanction Russia, but war fever can no longer be an excuse for Congress to transfer its power and responsibility to the executive branch and global bodies with blank checks, " Rep. Dan Bishop said.