A congressional lawsuit is precisely the wrong weapon to combat Obama’s lawlessness.
Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Online
6/28/2014
…This, in a nutshell, is the theatrical exercise in futility that is House Speaker Boehner’s proposed lawsuit against our rampantly lawless president. Boehner and the Congress hold the tools that could end, or at least dramatically reduce, the administration’s onslaught. Instead, the speaker prefers to bring a whistle to a gunfight. Paralyzed by fear of catcalls from Obama’s slavish media, Boehner eschews the use of his own armaments in favor of turning to the courts — apparently, in hope that a judge will pronounce with stentorian flourish that which is already abundantly obvious to all with eyes to see: The president of the United States is in gross violation of his solemn oath to execute the laws faithfully, usurping congressional power in a systematic assault on the separation of powers that safeguards our liberties…
…Congress absolutely has the “self-help” capacity to remedy presidential malfeasance: It can repeal or amend laws, refuse to fund an executive agency’s illegal enforcement action, or impeach executive officials — from the lowly subordinates who carry out lawless actions up to the president himself. There is no legal impediment stopping Congress from taking these measures; there is a political impediment stopping Boehner. The speaker either does not have the votes necessary to get Congress to act; or he may have them — at least enough of them to pass House bills to defund or impeach, putting Senate Democrats in the unenviable position of defending administration lawlessness — but he is scared to death of being demagogued by the president’s media adjutants. That may be a good reason to find a more effective Speaker. It is not a good reason to undo the Constitution’s standing requirements.
It is worth remembering why we have those requirements, especially in matters that involve political rather than personal injury. The Framers gave us a Constitution for a free people confident in its capacity for political self-governance. Consequently, the great public-policy questions, including those that implicate our governing framework — the separation of powers that prevents tyranny — are supposed to be determined by elected officials who answer directly to the citizens. When those questions are punted to the politically unaccountable courts, we are essentially asking to be ruled by lawyers who cannot be removed from office if they get these questions wrong…
The complete article is at National Review Online.
Related: Also by the author, No Special Counsel for the IRS Scandal—Just Impeach the Corrupt Officials
…If you believe, as I do, that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are corruptly covering up the conspiracy by the executive branch and congressional Democrats to violate the constitutional rights of conservative groups, what makes you think they would appoint a scrupulous lawyer to investigate and expose the conspiracy?…
Michael Ramirez, Investors.com
Update: Obama ignores Boehner lawsuit threat: ‘I’ll keep taking actions on my own’…
