Stockman walks out of State of the Union

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”

“I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers,” Stockman said in a press release shortly after Obama’s speech ended. “Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address.”

{mosads}Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”

“This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense,” the Texas congressman said.

Stockman also criticized Obama for refusing to admit “his policies have failed,” and for advancing a plan for more taxes and spending that is a “blueprint for perpetual poverty.”

The Tea Party-backed congressman had missed weeks of House votes and hadn’t been campaigning in Texas for his race against Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). After tweeting that people could “find out Monday” where he’d been, Stockman resurfaced Monday to say he’d been on a House-sanctioned international trip and blasting reports saying he had been missing.

Other Republican members had similar reactions to Obama’s promise to do by executive order what he can’t get done legislatively in Congress.

“Unfortunately, what I heard from President Obama tonight was hostility toward our foundational principles, condescension toward a co-equal branch of government, and a general aversion to common sense and bipartisanship,” Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) said in a press release.

“The president’s attempt to intimidate Congress by abusing executive power demonstrates a serious unwillingness to work with the coequal legislative branch of government,” Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) said in a statement.