First the ACA: Speaker John Boehner has found a third lawyer, (the first two Washington law firms backed out), to take on his still un-filed lawsuit against President Obama and his implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The suit, if it ever sees the light of day, is supposed to argue that the President had no right to delay the small business requirement for one year--despite the fact that small business owners said they needed more time to fully comply with the law and Republicans in the House and Senate, in light of the business owners' request, lobbied the President to do exactly that.
How Mr. Boehner and his fellow GOP obstructionists hope to prevail in a lawsuit that contends the President did what they asked him to do and now they're mad about it, is a question for another time.
And then immigration: But now, Mr. Boehner has decided to throw another piece of raw meat to the far-right. The Speaker has announced that, if the President goes ahead and moves on immigration as he has promised, the House will add the immigration issue to their phantom lawsuit.
Word from the annual Federalist Society's national convention seems to indicate that Mr. Boehner's latest "cause" is not all that outrage-worthy.
The Federalist Society is a legal group made up of conservative lawyers and jurists. As Steve Benen, MSNBC writer, put it, "If you're looking for a room full of powerful Republican lawyers eager to take on President Obama in the courts, you'd be wise to start at a Federalist Society gathering."
During a panel discussion of the President's plans on immigration, Christopher Schroeder, law and public policy professor at Duke Law School said, "The practice is long and robust. The case law is robust. Let me put it this way. Suppose some president came to me and asked me in the office of legal counsel, 'Is it okay for me to go ahead and defer the deportation proceedings of childhood arrival?' Under the present state of the law, I think that would be an easy opinion to write. Yes."
He went on, "I don't know where in the Constitution there is a rule that if the president's enactment affects too many people, he's violating the Constitution... I agree this can make us very uncomfortable. I just don't see the argument for unconstitutionality at this juncture."
It was reported that the panel was in agreement and that during the following discussion period no one in the audience expressed an opposite opinion.
When two law firms turn down a high profile case like the one the House offered them and when the nation's leading conservative lawyers and jurists tell you case law is not in your favor and "We don't like you" is not a constitutional argument for a lawsuit or impeachment, any intelligent legislator would listen.
The smart thing would be to first admit that the ACA lawsuit is not winnable, and then take up the bi-partisan immigration bill that the Senate passed a year ago. Debate it, vote on it, act like the legislators you were elected to be!
Unfortunately, John Boehner and his Republican buddies seem to prefer life at the bottom of the grading curve--somewhere between doltish and brain-dead--where $500/ hour seems a reasonable price to pay to keep the party rabble in a frenzy, and actually passing a bill is seen as a cop-out.
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