Thursday, June 26, 2014

Boehner Suing Obama Is A Waste Of Time

Speaker of the House John Boehner has announced plans to file a lawsuit against President Obama in hope that the court will force Obama to follow the law and stop abusing his executive authority and circumventing Congress. Boehner, and anyone else who is familiar with the law, knows this is a show and a waste of time. Boehner is up for re-election in Ohio in November and this is most likely a show to boost his base. Either way he'll be wasting time and taxpayer dollars.

Let's take a look at it realistically. If he files the suit and the case moves quickly through the system, and wins, the President, as he has already done in the past, will ignore the court and continue doing what he does while his attorneys file an appeal. The case will undoubtedly eventually go all the way to the Supreme Court, most likely next year sometime. By that time who knows what Obama may have decreed through Executive Order? 

For the sake of the argument (and my blog post) let's say the case goes to the Supreme Court in 2015 and the justices rule in favor of Boehner. That'll fix the problem, right? Hmmm...  Let's look at how well Obama has abided by court rulings so far.

In May of 2010, following the BP oil spill, the President, through his Department of Interior, halted all offshore drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. Oil companies filed suit and won. The Obama administration ignored the ruling and a U.S. District Judge in Louisiana found the government in contempt saying Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling.

In 2012, President Obama declared that the Senate was in recess and illegally appointed people to the National Labor Relations Board, bypassing the confirmation procedure. A case was filed by Senate Republicans and the court ruled the President was outside the law by declaring the Senate in recess. The Appeals Court reached the same decision. Just a few minutes ago the Supreme Court unanimously that the President overstepped his boundaries and illegally made those appointments when the Senate was still in session. The appointees are currently still serving on the board.

In August of last year Eric Holder filed suit against Texas claiming their voter ID laws are "designed to disproportionately impact Hispanic and African-American voters.” Of course Holder's claims are ludicrous but he did it anyway - after the Supreme Court had stripped the feds of power over state election laws. Apparently a Supreme Court ruling is too general for Mr. Holder and he wants them to have to rule on each individual state.

And in September of last year the Obama administration sent letters to colleges and universities around the nation urging them to continue using admissions to increase diversity in their schools even after the Supreme Court ruled schools should approve the use of race as a factor in admissions only after concluding “that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.” The letter said "the administration hopes colleges and universities aren’t making changes in admissions policies because of the ruling."

In other words - "We want you to ignore the Supreme Court ruling, as we often do, and continue doing what you've been doing."

Never mind the blatant lawlessness of this President. Let's go back to Boehner's plan to file suit. Ultimately it's the President's job to enforce the laws of the land. Obama has already proven that he does that selectively, if and when he does it. So if Boehner is successful and wins a Supreme Court ruling against the President - who's going to see that the ruling is enforced? The President?

Maybe Boehner doesn't understand that part because he is not an attorney. He should talk to one or more of the 37% of House members who are attorneys before he jumps off with this. He could save us all some money.

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