Boehner Is Suing to Stop Obama From Delaying the Employer Mandate and May Ask the Court to Delay it Instead
Just when I though the House Republicans lawsuit against the President couldn’t get more absurd it does. From the Speaker’s Office explaining their own lawsuit:
Q: But if the House lawsuit succeeds, it means the Obamacare employer mandate goes into effect, doesn’t it?
A: If the House litigation succeeds, the House would immediately take up legislation – again – to stop the implementation of the employer mandate through the normal constitutional legislative process, as well as legislation to stop the law’s mandates on the rest of the nation. Such legislation has already passed the House with bipartisan support. The House would also have the option of asking the court for a stay of the effect of the order to allow time for the legislative process to work.
(emphasis mine)
This is remarkable. Not only are House Republicans suing to stop Obama from delaying a provision they want delayed anyway, which is bizarre enough to begin with. House Republicans are also planning to ask the court to stop the President from unilaterally delaying the provision — and then they plan to ask the court to unilaterally delay the provision.
In effect, they are suing the President for supposedly usurping the power of the legislature and also plan to ask the court to basically do the same thing based only on what it thinks the Congress might do purely based on their words. Which seem to be contradicted by their actions.
After all there is a reason the court should need to give Congress “time” for the legislative process to work, or to try and predict what they will do. There is nothing stopping Congress from moving forward with an employer mandate delay before the lawsuit is decided, expect for the fact that if Congress did adopt a clean employer mandate delay and Obama signed it that could make the whole lawsuit moot.
Boehner Is Suing to Stop Obama From Delaying the Employer Mandate and May Ask the Court to Delay it Instead
Just when I though the House Republicans lawsuit against the President couldn’t get more absurd it does. From the Speaker’s Office explaining their own lawsuit:
Q: But if the House lawsuit succeeds, it means the Obamacare employer mandate goes into effect, doesn’t it?
A: If the House litigation succeeds, the House would immediately take up legislation – again – to stop the implementation of the employer mandate through the normal constitutional legislative process, as well as legislation to stop the law’s mandates on the rest of the nation. Such legislation has already passed the House with bipartisan support. The House would also have the option of asking the court for a stay of the effect of the order to allow time for the legislative process to work.
(emphasis mine)
This is remarkable. Not only are House Republicans suing to stop Obama from delaying a provision they want delayed anyway, which is bizarre enough to begin with. House Republicans are also planning to ask the court to stop the President from unilaterally delaying the provision — and then they plan to ask the court to unilaterally delay the provision.
In effect, they are suing the President for supposedly usurping the power of the legislature and also plan to ask the court to basically do the same thing based only on what it thinks the Congress might do purely based on their words. Which seem to be contradicted by their actions.
After all there is a reason the court should need to give Congress “time” for the legislative process to work, or to try and predict what they will do. There is nothing stopping Congress from moving forward with an employer mandate delay before the lawsuit is decided, expect for the fact that if Congress did adopt a clean employer mandate delay and Obama signed it that could make the whole lawsuit moot.
Since Congress hasn’t approved a clean delay and is suing to stop the executive delay, I don’t know why the court should believe Congress doesn’t want the the employer mandate to be enforced right away. (more…)
