Behind Closed Doors, Obama Crafts Executive Actions

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/politics/behind-closed-doors-o...

Mr. Obama’s increasingly expansive appetite for the use of unilateral action on issues including immigration, tax policy and gay rights has emboldened activists and businesses to flock to the administration with their policy wish lists. It also has opened the president, already facing charges of executive overreach, to criticism that he is presiding over opaque policy-making, with the potential to reward political backers at the expense of other interests, including some on the losing side who are threatening to sue. . .

“During your State of the Union address, you stated that you want to make 2014 a ‘year of action,'  ” Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, wrote to Mr. Obama in March, in a letter requesting that he issue an executive order banning the import of assault or military weapons.

The go-it-alone approach has left the administration — which claims to be the most transparent in United States history — essentially making policy from the White House, replacing congressional hearings and floor debates with closed meetings for invited constituencies. ​