Discussion for article #224915
I am beginning to get the impression that John Boehner is literally grasping at straws --ANYTHING – to make it appear that he is doing something and actually being useful. Ego-maniac to the max!
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Finally. They have released the details of this lawsuit and now they can move on with working on the Supplement for the Border crisis.
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THIS is the best they got???
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This is an “Onion” story isn’t it?
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So you’re gonna sue the President for not inconveniencing employers?
Good luck with that, Rep. Boner (R - Loompaland)!
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So, what remedy are they seeking, really? Impeachment? Resignation? Self deportation?
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Last year the president announced he’ll delay by one year the Obamacare requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide insurance to their employees. Republicans strongly objected to the mandate in the first place and have called for repealing it.
So they’re suing Obama for doing something they wanted, but refused to do themselves because BENGHAZI! or something?
They clearly don’t get the concept of irony.
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So when/if this lawsuit gets thrown out of court, who is stuck paying the legal bills? Taxpayers? Or can we as taxpayers counter-sue Boehner or the RNC to cover the costs?
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Let me get this straight. They’re suing him because he did the one thing they wanted him to do – stop the implementation of Obamacare.
Something they tried to do over 40 times and were unable to do.
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Wait, so Boehner plans to sue the President, but first he needs to finalize a draft of legislation that would then need to be passed before he can actually get around to suing the President?
In other words Boehner needs to make it look like he’s doing something between now and the mid-terms, without actually having to follow through on anything.
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Well, isn’t that just 'Peachy.
I’m no consititutional scholar - but this does at least look like progress.
It’s a specific charge about something the President did actually do, rather than weird handwaving and crazy eye-rolling.
Now, we just need to know the facts - does the President have the authority to have made that delay? I thought he did, since it was an implementation question. He didn’t change the law, he just implemented it slightly differently once facts on the ground emerged. I thought he was allowed to do that.
Over to you constitutional experts.
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So, what remedy are they seeking, really? Impeachment? Resignation? Self deportation?
Probably just admitting he’s a foreign born Kenyan anti-colonialist, socialist Muslim Nazi dictator who believes in Black Liberation Theology and was out to destroy America and then pouring gasoline over his head and setting himself on fire would be enough. You don’t want to push it too far.
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“In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own.”
Speaker Merlot, you are one of the least fucking qualified people to talk about how “our system of government was designed to work”.
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The “draft” of this proposed legislation is laughable.
Basically Boehner is asking for the legal authority to sue the President and any other U.S. employee for failing to act in a manner consistent with their Constitutional duties. Of course, Boehner already has the legal authority to bring action against a President or U.S. employee that is not acting in accordance to the Constitution. It’s called impeachment. Even better his proposed legislation would only grant the Speaker the authority to sue the President or other U.S. employees for failing to follow the Constitution, but only with regards to this one narrow part of the Affordable Care Act.
Basically Boehner is seeking a new legal authority to go after the President, without having to actually go through the impeachment process, but only in a narrowly defined way that couldn’t possibly be used against future Presidents or Republicans.
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Maybe we the tax payers can sue the House of Representatives the exact same amount it will cost to run the select committee on Benghazi?
Time for Jonathan Turley to write an op-ed about how this lawsuit could maybe possibly be successful and TPM to do a piece on that op-ed without obtaining a contrary opinion.
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I believe he does. Here’s a good overview: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/delaying-parts-of-obamacare-blatantly-illegal-or-routine-adjustment/277873/
Basically it comes down to the Constitution giving Presidents the authority to “take care that laws be faithfully executed.”
The constitutional argument here seems to be if Obama was taking care that the ACA was faithfully executed by delaying the mandate, or if the President was failing to faithfully execute the law by delaying the mandate. Precedent and most legal scholars, at this point, seem to support the former, while Boehner is pushing for the latter.
[Edit: There is also the legal/semantic question about the difference between the words “execute” and “enforce.” Republicans seem to be arguing that the President is constitutionally required to “enforce” the law as written, without any delays or changes to how the law as written is executed once passed.]
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Or in this case “orangey.”