mr. rotunda. >> thank you mr. chairman. i think it's important to explain i favor immigration of the united states. it american indians had strict immigration laws, perhaps we wouldn't be here. my parents did not know the language, but did not know the customs. they were strangers in a strange land. my mother told me years later, the first night in the united states, though she was well past the age of toilet training, she had an accident, she was so excited to be heemplt my father was a spy for the americans, he was a good spy because he spoke italian like a native. when he was in his 90s, i remember taking him to the va doctor, and the doctor said, looking at the paper, so you're italian, my father said, no, american. you have to realize, he did not know who was president, he did not know what year it was. he did not know my name. though he knew i was a friend. but he knew he was an american. so i favor reform along the lines of the president, whether congress exercises the comprehensive immigration reform or goes one ste

mr. rotunda. >> thank you mr. chairman. i think it's important to explain i favor immigration of the united states. it american indians had strict immigration laws, perhaps we wouldn't be here. my parents did not know the language, but did not know the customs. they were strangers in a strange land. my mother told me years later, the first night in the united states, though she was well past the age of toilet training, she had an accident, she was so excited to be heemplt my father was a spy for the americans, he was a good spy because he spoke italian like a native. when he was in his 90s, i remember taking him to the va doctor, and the doctor said, looking at the paper, so you're italian, my father said, no, american. you have to realize, he did not know who was president, he did not know what year it was. he did not know my name. though he knew i was a friend. but he knew he was an american. so i favor reform along the lines of the president, whether congress exercises the comprehensive immigration reform or goes one ste

mr. rotunda, let me start with you. some defenders of the president's unilateral actions have asserted that his actions were merely an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. are these assertions correct or is there indeed a fundamental difference between prosecutorial discretion and many of the president's unilateral actions? >> the short answer, if i can be short, is prosecutorial discretion the cases refer to criminal prosecutions. refusal to not prosecute somebody who enters the united states fraunlly in violation of criminal laws. the office of legal counsel said 1990 opinion it says the president's powers do not permit the president to which statues to enforce. it says obviously the president cannot refuse to enforce a statute he opposes for mere policy reasons. they don't site it. and there's a whole series of other ones where they don't site it. we know the -- in gal vin, the supreme court said congress is the authority on immigration matters, not the president. and president implements the law. you would think th

mr. rotunda. let me bring president h.w. bush into the room here. he proposed capital gains should be lowered. congress did not enact his proposal. under president obama's exertion of executive power could president bush simply have ignored or instructed the irs not to enforce the tax code on capital gains greater than 10%. >> if president bush would have done that he would have been exercising an unconstitutional policy that he would be implementing. it would not be legal and it would be unlawful. it is a great analogy to what's happened here. i keep going back to this but the truth of the matter is the president -- you can play the 22 times the president said "i'm not a king and i have to work with congress." but the president of the united states -- i want to read this -- >> if you will. >> very quickly. the president said, "i just took an action to change the law." and i keep saying, no one on this committee can possibly believe that the president has that authority. he just doesn't. you couldn't do it for taxes. you can't do it for immigration.

mr. rotunda has had to leave because i did want to comment on a couple of the points that he made. he mentioned -- let me photo you, mr. dupre. you mentioned in your written testimony a former head of the office of legal council under president clinton. and we researched who was that person and it turns out unless there were two individuals who made the exact same comment that it was walter dillinger. and it occurred to me that although you're questioning him, mr. dillinger is one of the ten legal scholars who has written to us saying they do not disagree on the power of the president and that they have reached the opinion p president's actions are completely lawful. in fact when he was making the take care cause comment, it was in reference to or opinion regarding whether the constitution limits the authority of the federal government to submit to binding: arbitration. and the olc opinion concluded that there was no such constitutional prohibition. it does not necessarily entail acting against each technical violation of the statute, but the case cited has nothing to do in my judgm

mr. thomson there, the secretary, standing. >> guest: yes. ok. c-span: and that painting, again, is in the rotunda of the capitol. >> guest: it is. now it shows a large num--probably a far larger number of the members of the second continental congress than were actually present. john adams later criticized that painting. he called it a 'shin' piece because it showed everybody's knees, i think. and he said it was part of the evolving myth--historical myth that was starting to become apparent in the 1820s; that there were more people there were more people there because we don't know how many people were actually there when the declaration was presented to congress--the draft was presented to congress. we don't really know altogether how many were there on the fourth of july because they didn't keep attendance. the document wasn't actually signed until august 2nd, and then people came in and signed later so that there are probably a larger number of signatories than were there to mak--to--for--present for the original vote either on independence on july 2nd or on the declaration itself on the fourt