Posted on 02/12/2014 7:36:18 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Obama has repeatedly suspended parts of the Affordable Care Act without the consent of Congress. The latest unilateral action happened Monday night, when the administration announced another delay of the employer mandate, the law's provision that businesses with more than 50 employees must provide their employees with insurance starting in 2014 or pay large fines. In July, the president decreed the mandate wouldn't be enforced at all in 2014, and last night administration officials declared that businesses with 50 to 99 employees wouldn't be penalized in 2015.
Republicans have denounced such actions as "lawless." But if what the president has done is illegal, then why haven't Republicans, or anyone else, taken him to court to stop him? According to Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a conservative Republican with impeccable legal credentials, the main problem is finding someone who would have the standing to sue the president over his unilateral changes to the law.
In order to establish standing, Lee told THE WEEKLY STANDARD in a phone interview, "You've got to show three things: you've got to show that the plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact--a concrete, particularized harm that's fairly traceable to the conduct of the defendent, and it is capable of being redressed or remedied by the court."
"It's not immediately apparent to me who it is that would have standing to show that they would be injured by this," Lee said. "The people directly affected by the employer mandate are employers. But I would imagine that the administration would argue, if sued on this by an employer..., 'You can't show you've been injured by this. We're letting you off the hook.'"
Many of the president's other changes to the law--such as allowing insurers to sell plans outlawed by Obamacare and delaying the individual mandate for those who had their insurance plans canceled--have similarly relieved burdens.
But why couldn't U.S. taxpayers, who will be stuck paying for these executive actions, sue the president? "The general public, the taxpayers, are hurt in that this makes that much more unstable and that much more unaffordable a program that was already unstable and unaffordable. But there is a longstanding jurisprudential rule that one cannot establish standing merely by virtue of one's status as a taxpayer, absent certain rare circumstances," Lee said.
So when no one has standing to sue the president, is there anything Congress can do to stop his unconstitutional actions? "I think the most effective, efficient way of doing it, the way that sort of maximizes the deterrent effect without significantly disrupting government in general is for Congress to use its spending power in such way that withholds funds in areas in which the president has overreached," Lee said. "There were many who suggested that we do precisely that, for example, with the illegal recess appointments by withholding funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau--you know, when Richard Corday was illegally recess appointed. But alas, the CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, which is a private, for-profit corporation and isn't funded by Congress, so that was outside of Congress's purview."
"In other circumstances, Congress has just declined to exercise that option of withholding funding," Lee continued. "But it is what Congress is supposed to do. The Founding Fathers contemplated that. James Madison discussed it in Fedralist 57. And it's perhaps the most effective, least intrusive tool for Congress to respond to executive overreach."
Of course, the problem with Obamacare, as we learned during the 2013 government shutdown, is that the law is funded even if Congress fails to pass a new spending bill. Congressional Republicans may not have the power to stop the president from rewriting parts of Obamacare. But with a little more than two years until another presidential election, they may take comfort in the precedent that if a Democratic president has the authority to suspend significant parts of Obamacare, so would a Republican president.
Incidentally, I’m not sure whether the courts would allow one of those affected employees to sue the president directly. I think it might be possible that the courts would require the lawsuit by the employee to be directed towards their employer. So, the employee would be suing the employer to demand that the employer abide by the requirements of the employer mandate. So, the employer’s response would be “we don’t have to abide by the mandate until 2016 because the president has given us a pass.”
This would then allow the court to declare that the business was indeed subject to the mandate, effectively nullifying President Obama’s failure to enforce the law.
I’m not sure that the courts would require that, as they may allow a lawsuit directly against the president, but I suspect that there would have to be some kind of a tweak to the lawsuit in order to make sure that they were suing the correct entity.
This “standing” bs never came up until obastard.
What about the individuals that have been forced into the obastardcare at higher costs and lesser benefit. Are they not discriminated against and have they not lost a competitive advantage if they are tradesmen or professionals competing with companies who provide same or similar services and who are exempted from this BS?
They don’t have the votes.
Amen.
Sad but it’s true.
He is protected.
Fraud in the inducement by the millions, is damages.
Not to mention the constitutional violation of separation of powers.
Boner and McConnell roll over and disagree.
Best bet is to not stand in the way of the man's train wreck. It's coming and it will be colossal.
In the mean time let us hope he does not burn the entire country down.
At this point they could prolly get away with invoking the 25th ammendment and removing his azz for incompetence. Unfit for office.
I worry more about the dependent class that will not be able to handle the crush that will come if it goes south. I think most of us are prepared and capable of helping ourselves each other through troubled times. They will find out that they well get more help from their fellow countrymen than they will from their government. It could get ugly though.
Judges and I'm starting to think the republican congress. No one knows the extent of Obama's NSA data mining operations against the "opposition" as well as anyone else who might complain. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence out there and it sure feels like blackmail. Can't wait to read the books after he's retired back to "Hawaii" or wherever it is that he came from.
Impeachment is an alternative.
It matters not whether the Senate convicts him or not. The Reps should do their constitutional duty and let the chips fall where they may. Forget the political fallout and do what is right.
Why do we care who has standing according to someone who doesn’t follow the LAW?
We need civil disobedience—the pResident doesn’t follow any law...why should WE the PEOPLE? Screw Barry.
It seems to me that you could sue any insurance company that sells you an old policy or a version of an old policy since, regardless of what 0napoleon says, it wouldn’t be legal under the law. If someone would do that it would shut down his whole delay scam.
Sad p;art is if they have the house and senate they do not have the ba** s to do anything, at least with the present leadership, but waiting on the sidelines are those 1st grade little girls with the ba** to do what they will not do.
In the near future the legality of these deferrals will be challenged, but not by suing the President. Instead, the suit will against the employer who illegally failed to comply with ACA.
Eventually some uninsured employee of a firm with 50-99 employees will get in a car crash and run up a $1 million bill in ER. It’s bound to happen. He won’t be able to pay up, and either he, or the hospital, will sue his employer for failing to have mandated insurance.
Whether a Presidential decree has legal authority to override the law will be determined in this manner.
But...but...oh...:-(
Technically, I think it’s the FYTW clause of the Constitution. Since it was written in invisible ink, most people don’t know about it.
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