Because of Obama and Reid, We Need Two New Constitutional Amendments

If there is anything we have learned by having Barack Obama in office for the last 7-1/2 years, it is that any rogue President can sidestep the balance of power -- as now theoretically outlined in our Constitution -- through the use of executive orders and memoranda.   At the same time, Harry Reid's blocking of any legislation sent over from the House, while he was the Majority Leader, also exposes another problem.

For these reasons, I believe we need to fix these holes in the Constitution with two new amendments.

The first should clearly restrict the power of the President to legislate from his office.  Any executive orders and memoranda that modifies any past legislation should be time limited to several months and not renewable. This way, Congress can either choose to pass legislation to sustain the President's executive action or, simply, let the President's actions expire.   Additionally, prosecutorial discretion needs to stop or, at the very least, also be time limited to, say, six months, and not renewable.

Similarly, another amendment is needed to insure that legislation passed in either the Senate or the House be brought to a vote in the other congressional body within some specified time frame.  If not, that legislation would automatically be sent to the President for signature.  This would stop majority leaders like Harry Reid from sitting on legislation that he thinks may be politically embarrassing for either his party members or his President.

I believe that both the House and the Senate, now controlled by the Republicans, could act on this almost immediately after being seated in January; assuming a Republican President is elected and congress still remains under the control of Republicans.  At that time, the offenders -- Reid and Obama -- will no longer be on the scene.

References:

Definition: Prosecutorial Discretion: https://www.google.com/search?q=procecrutalbe+disgression&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#safe=off&q=prosecutorial+discretion

The Constitutional Amendment Process: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/