Obama Aides Spent Months Planning to Govern Without Congress, Say President Is 'Very Comfortable' With the Arrangement

WASHINGTON — Senior officials in the Obama White House have been working with the counsel's office since April on a list of actions the President can take without Congress, in case voters removed Congress from the equation. On Tuesday voters did. Asked how comfortable the President would be governing by executive authority under a hostile legislature, one person familiar with the plan said: "very comfortable."

The planning, first reported before the election, covered tariffs, immigration and spending, and anticipated the investigations now scheduled for January. The White House publicly dismissed the premise as a false narrative promoted by the media, then continued the planning.

Analysts noted that Obama has "basically ignored Congress" for two years and governed through orders wherever possible, a habit expected to intensify now that Congress belongs to someone else. The President can also veto anything the new majority passes, and the majority lacks the votes to override him, a dynamic one aide described as "balance."

The Press's Executive Power desk applies the standard test. When a president of the other party announced he would simply route around a Congress the voters had just elected, the words "imperial" and "lawless" ran above the fold and three governors announced lawsuits. Under Obama it is "continuity of government." The pen is the same pen; the phone has been upgraded.

Asked whether the President had been briefed on the plan, the person said he had, and that he had found it very comfortable.