Yesterday, U.S. Congressman Scott Peters (CA-52) took part in the first hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Task Force on Executive Overreach. The Task Force, made up of 12 Republicans and 8 Democrats from the Judiciary Committee, was created by House Republican Leadership to critique the overuse of executive authority. The hearing featured testimony from conservative political scholars as well as attacks on executive actions in many areas where Congress has failed to pass legislation of its own. Following the hearing, Congressman Peters released the following statement:

“What struck me in all of the testimony was that there was an agreement that this is really is not a task force on executive overreach as much as it is on legislative underreach. For instance, we had an immigration reform bill in the Senate in 2013, it got 69 votes. But we didn’t even get a vote on that in the House of Representatives.

“Really what we have here is a failure of Congress. I am left with the impression that what we should do is get back to work on legislation from the House with which the Senate will agree and that the President might sign. Rather than have a hearing about what Congress isn’t doing, we should go about the business of doing Congressional work.”

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Click here or on the image above to view a full video of Congressman Peters’ remarks at the Executive Overreach Task Force hearing.