Rep. Steve King said Friday morning that his House Task Force on Executive Overreach is likely to call a hearing to examine President Obama’s “decree” calling on public schools to let transgender students use the bathroom of their choice.
“I oppose that piece of policy. I think … it is an executive overreach,” King said on CSPAN Friday. “And it’s a topic we’re likely to bring up in a future hearing before the task force that I chair.”
It was reported late Thursday that Obama would issue guidance on Friday saying that students in public schools should be able to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. The guidance is just that: guidance. But schools that don’t follow it could face cuts to federal funding a possible lawsuits.
King was picked by House leaders to lead the task force aimed at examining the extent to which these sorts of White House decrees violate the Constitution. Among other things, King’s group is looking at Obama’s actions on gun control and immigration.
King said on CSPAN that there’s no way the founders of the country has Obama’s pending bathroom announcement in mind when writing the rules to guide the nation.
“Can you imagine our Founding Fathers sitting down, drafting the declaration and ratifying the Constitution and thinking, you know what? We’re going to give the power to the attorney general of the United States to decide who goes to which bathroom,” he said.
“So I think … it’s an extreme executive overreach, and I don’t know how we stop it, but we need to address it. The president could have just as well taken a pass on that,” he said.
“To tell every school in America you’re going to lose your federal funding if you don’t let anybody that wants to go into any bathroom they want to,” King concluded. “That is outrageous.”
