How the suit
suits both the White House and the GOP
The irony of
the suit House Majority Leader John Boehner is filing against Pres. Obama on
the issue of executive overreach is that it benefits both the moderate wing of
the GOP and even the White House to some
extent. The likelihood is that in the long term the suit will fizzle like a
fire cracker dud, lit up for the 2014
midterms, but going nowhere later.
To recap
what the suit is all about is that the President overstepped his authority and
became a legislator when he delayed the mandate for a year for certain
employers with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance for their
employees. The White House claims whether or not the provision is upheld by
courts, the impact would not impact many
employers. The Census Bureau shows only 3.6% of firms employ 50 or more workers.
The GOP
dominated House is playing whac-a-mole. While decrying the Affordable Care Act (aka
Obamacare)’s burden on employers, the President acted by ordering the delay to
appease a protest from the business community and now the House suit wants to
whack him for doing what they themselves had advocated.
The suit
will more likely not be settled by the Supreme Court until well after the 2014 midterms, so Court decisions themselves will
not influence the 2014 midterms. What are the chances it will go nowhere,
anyway? The Washington Post’s Wonkblog compiled some
opinions and is worth a visit. "Boehner's
problem is that the vast majority of lawsuits brought by members of Congress
against the president on policy issues have been dismissed for lack of
standing. “ and the Court will not hear the case per Lyle Denniston of the National
Constitution Center as reported by Andrew Prokop in Vox. The New York Times Jonathan Weisman notes it
would truly damage the power of the executive branch. The implication of Weisman’s remarks is it
would damage power of any future GOP president as well,so the GOP shoul be
careful what it wishes.
So why bother? It suits the GOP
and Boehner’s agenda because it rides
the unpopularity of the ACA (aka Obamacare) and gives the GOP sustained ability
to dramatize their opposition. Boehner’s
suit supports the establishment side of his fractured party while giving the
Tea Party talking points to use in place of advocating impeachment when the likelihood of
impeachment is dim and not popular. Per
a yougov.com poll, only one third of
Americans support initiation of impeachment proceedings. (Approval statistics
fall along party affiliation;
independents are equally split)
Why should the Obama
administration see an advantage? To dramatize the GOP as a “do nothing party of
No” that opposes his acting even on issue on which they partly agree if it has
Obama’s name on it. It also diverts attention from wannabe impeachers and
gives anti Obama passions another outlet to express themselves, one that would be less damaging to the balance of
powers.
A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com July 25, 2014
A version of this appeared in the www.skyhidailynews.com July 25, 2014
Data sources:
https://today.yougov.com/news/2014/07/14/one-third-americans-want-impeach-obama/
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