House Republicans Vote to Take Obama to Court

Today, the House voted 225-201, nearly along party lines, to authorize litigation against President Obama. This is the long-awaited challenge to Obama’s usurpation of power via executive decree. The vote was on House Resolution 676. Here is the text of the resolution:

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House leadership decided to focus the resolution only on Obama’s actions with respect to Obamacare. This seems counter-intuitive; I would think it would be helpful to show a pattern of disregard for the law. In the case of this administration, that would be easy to do. But the Washington Examiner reports Congressman Pete Sessions’ rationale for the resolution’s narrow focus:

“We have chosen to bring this legislation to sue the president over his selective implementation of the Affordable Care Act because it is the option most likely to clear the legal hurdlers necessary to restore the balance of power,” Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said.

No doubt a lot of thought went into that choice. I assume the House leadership also has a plan to get a decision in their lawsuit before Obama leaves office, but that won’t be easy.

Lost in the Democrats’ yammering about politics and the appalling cost of the lawsuit–the first time in some years the Democrats have worried about the cost of anything, which in this case is de minimis–is that Obama’s violation of the Constitution is undeniable. Article II does not authorize the President to rule by decree, or to nullify federal laws that displease him. Obama has obviously acted unconstitutionally by changing the Obamacare statute by decree–repeatedly–and, even more seriously, by gutting the nation’s immigration laws. Rather than “tak[ing] care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as is his constitutional duty, Obama has repeatedly undermined and even nullified the country’s laws. We have never had a president like him before; let’s hope we never have one again.

The Democrats have been raising money for some time on the threat of a lawsuit against Obama, but that is rather small beer. What they really want is impeachment. So they slyly characterize the lawsuit as a step toward impeachment, without any explanation of why that should be the case. I get three or four fundraising emails from the Democrats every day, talking about the imminent threat of impeachment. I have reproduced a few of them here. In fact, no serious Republican is talking about impeaching Obama, and there is zero chance of any such move in the House. (Unless, of course, Obama does something really bizarre.) But for the Democrats, money is pretty much everything, and impeachment is catnip to their base. So every day, they try to keep the idea of impeachment alive.

Grabien compiled this amusing montage of Democrats desperately trying to promote the impeachment of President Obama as a political threat. Grabien titles the clip: “Democrats not letting impeachment dream die.”

I don’t know. The Democrats understand their base better than I do. But can it possibly be a good idea to tell your party’s members–three times a day!–that the leader of their party is in danger of being impeached? That doesn’t seem like good publicity to me, but maybe I’m just behind the times. At least when it comes to fundraising.

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