Yeah, but in the case of the employer mandate, the administration sees a problem too. A problem big enough that they are willing to stretch legal doctrines to make sure it doesn’t come to pass.
This lawsuit has plenty of merit. You may not like the GOP’s motives here, but President’s cannot suspend the enforcement of laws. This is not prosecutorial discretion or lack of resources. This is simply a case of the law being problematic and the President deciding on his own not to enforce it. It’s equivalent to Nixon’s impoundment of funds. It’s simply not a Presidential power.
Obama will lose this case like he’s lost so many others on the question of executive power. Although one thing I read in New Republic is that if he implements the mandate right after the 2014 elections, which is very possible, then the judicial branch will probably decline to hear the case because it’s moot. But that’s also a useful result, because if the employer mandate is problematic, then the Democrats get blamed for it in the 2016 elections.And no,don’t be giving me the “Republicans are rooting for failure” argument. The Republicans will repeal the mandate at any time the Democrats are willing to go along.
Then Bohener and the house should sue the founding fathers, this lawsuit has very little to no merit. As Eric Posner, professor at the University of Chicago Law School notices:
And that will be never then. Just like in the ICE case, this lawsuit is only made to fool the base as being a “game changer” when it is mostly driven by politics of the most rotten kind, it does not matter if it is bound for failure, like in the ICE case.
Posner is mistaken. It is not prosecutorial discretion to simply not enforce a law at all.
But if it is, Republicans have been missing out. They didn’t have to enforce those environmental laws at all. Heck, they don’t even have to collect taxes if the Republican President deems it not a great idea.
The examples given shows that he is on the right track, over here… we have… you.
And as no one has done so it is because they will make us go the way of an early civilization that failed. There was a king in ancient Mesopotamia that reduced or abolished taxes, lots of people were happy, but the government became bankrupt and then the invaders overran the place as there was no money for defense.
Well then, your bad ideas really do time travel and do a lot of damage in history! ;)
Tell me, do you think that every time cop does not give someone a speeding ticket when they are going 1mph over the limit, that they are derelict of their duty and should be punished?
Any workable system of government (and even that of the USA!) must allow those responsible for enforcing the laws a degree of discretion in how and when they are to be enforced.
WHich is not the same as not enforcing the law at all. A mayor cannot just decide that traffic laws won’t be enforced. He can prioritize, which is what you’re thinking of, but he cannot decide on his own not to enforce the law at all.
A President can especially not delay a law because it poses a political problem for him. The law will probably go into effect right after the 2014 elections, which just coincidentally is the last election that matters to Barack Obama.
Presumably, the Congress that passed the law wanted it to work, and work well. If the executive decision regarding enforcement will improve the function of a law passed by Congress, the will of the Congress is being faithfully regarded.
Since states are sovereign, a case can be made that disputes over laws between states and the federal government should be handled with diplomacy. THe federal government is still going after the illegal drug trade in Colorado in any case.
Emphasis added. I believe adaher has this right, that this is what’s problematic. No one disputes that the executive branch has discretion, but it’s not unlimited. When that discretion is exercised because of practical concerns–e.g., there’s simply not enough resources, or there’s a temporary obstacle that forces a choice of either “no law” or “interim modification”–courts ought to give latitude. And I also recognize that as a practical matter, the president can do whatever he wants so long as someone doesn’t stop him. But as Americans, we should be outraged over these abuses, not comparing Obama to a traffic cop giving someone a pass on a speeding ticket. This is not how our democracy should work. Obama is not the emperor, he doesn’t get to overrule the legislature because it turns out there’s huge political blowback or he thinks they got it wrong.
This is a president who decides what aspects of laws he’ll execute purely because of political problems it poses for him, or because he doesn’t like laws as they were crafted. This is a president who feels he has the authority to suspend aspects of laws that are unfolding exactly as written, where he needn’t lift a finger and the law will do exactly what it was written to do. That is a power we should all be vehemently opposed to–whether it’s our party or not, whether we like the outcome or we don’t.
Again, I’m not predicting how this will turn out. Abuses of presidential power have a long history.
However, the courts have ruled against Presidents who don’t enforce the law, mainly in the environmental field.
Judge Rules Against Bush EPA Policy
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
AP
NEW YORK (Jan. 26) - The Environmental Protection Agency must force power plants to protect fish and other aquatic life even if it’s expensive, a federal appeals court said in a ruling favoring states and environmental groups.
The decision late Thursday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that it was improper for the EPA to let power plants circumvent environmental laws - for instance, restocking polluted water with new fish instead of paying to upgrade their technology.
It said the EPA’s decisions must “be driven by technology, not cost,” unless two technologies produce essentially the same benefits but have much different costs.
“EPA’s goal is to protect fish and the ecosystem while meeting the nation’s need for reliable energy sources,” said Benjamin H. Grumbles, the agency’s assistant administrator for water. The agency was reviewing the decision, he said.
The ruling drew praise from environmental groups and six states that had sued.
“This decision is a strong and stinging rebuke of the Bush administration’s underhanded practice of issuing rule changes to undercut environmental laws,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement Friday.
So yes, there is precedent for courts forcing an administration to apply the law when they are trying to allow businesses to skate due to cost. Which is exactly what the Obama administration is doing.
NC is enjoying, like the rest of the country, the moderate recovery made possible by the innate strength of the American economy. Obama’s contribution has been limited to the initial surge of spending and support for struggling businesses after the great Bush crash. R’s refuse to do much more. The Fed likely would have pursued the same policies of pumping cheap money into the economy whether or now Obama was in the executive office.
NC has refused to participate fully in the ACA, turning down medicare money, for example. At first, there was only one insurance company for people to choose from…
Now the R’s are campaigning on the ACA that it has drastically harmed NC businesses, preventing them from adding jobs and increasing their costs to where they may have to go out of business…
There is absolutely no proof that NC businesses have been harmed. If you all play by the same rules, there is no way to say that business in general has been harmed.
Every change in the rules makes business people very uneasy. they get so many tax breaks and preferred treatments now that the wealth of the fat cats is increasing exponentially while the rest of us stagnate or decline.
R’s will continue to say that Dems are ruining the country, will continue to not put regular people first…until the day when they are simpering in the political corner, sucking their thumb and wondering if their very lives and property are safe.
And that would fly if it wasn’t for the “little” detail that it was corporations and industry the ones that requested the delay, if this was just a political thing you may had the point; but to deny and refuse to consider, not only the precedents, but also what happened on the matter at hand is what tells many in the know that this lawsuit is just being made precisely to fool many into accepting the Republican propaganda. Just like with the ones that pushed the ICE lawsuit, guys like Bohener do not care that this is bound for failure the objective is to rile the base.
They’re just desperate to polish the giant turd that is their performance record by deflecting public attention to a faux noble cause, i.e., bringing down the President. It’s not going to happen and will just expend millions more tax dollars. On the positive side, it will make them look even more ridiculous than they already do.
And it may hurt them with a group that’s important to them; businesses. Honestly, I think they first decided that they wanted to sue for something and then went looking and, apparently, this was the only thing they could find that was remotely believably actionable.
The executive orders regarding minimum wages and discrimination for government contractors would have gone over well with their base, so why didn’t they sue over one or both of those? I’m guessing it’s because they know that he has an unquestionable legal right to make those orders.
A small part of me almost hopes that they succeed and cause the mandate to be immediately implemented, thus pissing off a large part of their base.
Just FYI, Dopers, here is the thread from last August discussing the constitutionality of the employer mandate reporting delay, and the supposed logic behind Republican objections.
Consensus in that thread, where it existed, seemed to be that Congress has recourse under existing law (mainly the Administrative Procedure Act) to bring suit, but that there is long precedent in favor of such executive agency discretion and a steep judicial hill faced by the plaintiffs if they are to force immediate implementation.
Looking at the timing here, I wonder even if Boehner et al somehow pulled off a win in their lawsuit, could they do so prior to the already scheduled implementation of reporting requirements in 2015? What exactly is it they want their political base (and/or the rest of the country) to see as the nominal goal here? Looks like pure political sniping by the House Republicans, without even the courage of their convictions that an impeachment effort (doomed though it would be) would demonstrate.
