After a media blitz by President Barack Obama last week that repeatedly denounced House Speaker John Boehner’s potential lawsuit as a “stunt,” Boehner is copying the president’s strategy to get his own point across.
Boehner announced in late June that he would file a lawsuit against Obama on behalf of the House for his repeated use of executive action and he published an op-ed on CNN.com Sunday that laid out his case for suing Obama.
“Every member of Congress swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So did President Barack Obama,” Boehner wrote. “But too often over the past five years, the President has circumvented the American people and their elected representatives through executive action, changing and creating his own laws, and excusing himself from enforcing statutes he is sworn to uphold — at times even boasting about his willingness to do it, as if daring the American people to stop him.”
Obama responded to Boehner’s call for a lawsuit by blaming the GOP for “forcing” him to take executive action. He even went so far as to say, “So sue me” during a press conference.
Boehner called the president’s response “flippant” and said it was “utterly beneath the dignity of the office.”
“We have a system of government outlined in our Constitution with the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. Congress has its job to do, and so does the President. When there are conflicts like this — between the legislative branch and the executive branch — it is my view that it is our responsibility to stand up for this institution in which we serve, and for the Constitution,” Boehner wrote.
He said his lawsuit harkens back to the need for accountability for lawmakers.
“Over the last five years, starting — not coincidentally — when his political party lost the majority in the House of Representatives, the President has consistently overstepped his authority under the Constitution, and in so doing eroded the power of the legislative branch,” he continued. “The legislative branch has an obligation to defend the rights and responsibilities of the American people, and America’s constitutional balance of powers — before it is too late.”
Read the full op-ed at CNN.
