When bad Obama policies collide

By Elizabeth Price Foley and David B. Rivkin Jr. — Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Since its partisan passage in 2010, Obamacare has traversed a rocky road. President Obama has taken numerous executive actions to delay and modify the poorly written law in an effort to ease the political consequences of full implementation and make it work. However, in the president’s zeal to rewrite yet another area of law — immigration — he’s sabotaged one of Obamacare’s primary goals: expanding employer-sponsored health insurance.

The president’s executive actions on immigration — the major one of which is currently on hold due to a court order — confers two specific benefits upon approximately 6 million individuals who have entered this country illegally or overstayed their visas. First, they are completely exempted from deportation. Second, they are granted work permits. These unilaterally conferred benefits are powerful evidence that the president isn’t just exercising executive “discretion” by prioritizing enforcement of existing immigration law — he is rewriting it.

This massive influx of now-lawful workers will predictably reduce job opportunities for U.S. citizens and lawful residents. But beyond this obvious negative impact, granting work permits to these individuals will have a subtler, equally pernicious effect: It will encourage employers to hire these 6 million individuals over U.S. citizens and legal residents. This is due to Obamacare’s structure.

Under Obamacare, employers must pay a tax — called the “employer responsibility” tax — if they either fail to offer insurance altogether, or they offer “substandard” insurance. The employer responsibility tax is hefty, ranging between $2,000 to $3,000 per year, and is payable for every full-time employee who buys health insurance on an exchange and receives a tax subsidy as a result. The idea is to incentivize employers to offer generous insurance coverage, thus keeping workers off the exchanges, and away from tax subsidies. If no full-time worker receives a tax subsidy for buying health insurance, the employer will pay no employer responsibility tax. Read more »

Arizona Redistricting Case Could Signal The Future Of Legislative Standing

By Elizabeth Price Foley and David Rivkin, March 3 2015, 11:57am

In Federalist No. 22, Alexander Hamilton observed, “Laws are a dead letter without the courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.” In constitutional controversies, the judiciary’s role is even more profound. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, a case that will signal how willing the Court is to prevent separation of powers from becoming a dead letter.

Separation of powers protects individual liberty by preventing any one branch of government from amassing too much power. It also ensures that government functions effectively, by assigning to each branch those powers that are most appropriate to its nature. For example, legislating is best accomplished by a multi-member body that engages in extended debate and deliberation. By contrast, waging war requires timeliness, and is thus best given to a unitary executive.

The Arizona case involves a turf dispute between Arizona’s legislative and executive branches, but it’s unclear if the Court is amenable to refereeing this constitutional conflict.  The case is therefore a canary in the coalmine for “legislative standing,” which means a legislature’s ability to defend, in court, its lawmaking prerogative against executive assault.  This is important not only to Arizona’s legislature, but any legislature, including the U.S. Congress.

At issue in the case is the constitutionality of Proposition 106, a referendum passed by Arizona voters that divested the legislature of drawing the state’s congressional districts and gave that power to an independent commission. When the commission redrew the districts in 2012, the Arizona legislature filed suit, asserting that the commission had violated Article I, section 4, of the U.S. Constitution, stating, “the Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for … Representatives [in the House] shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof .”

Before the meaning of this language can be resolved by the Court, it must first find that the Arizona legislature has standing to sue. In over 225 years of constitutional history, the Court hasn’t definitely articulated when legislative standing is proper. Read more »

Another Obama Collision With the Constitution

By MICHAEL B. MUKASEY and DAVID B. RIVKIN JR, February 19, 2015

President Obama last week sent to Congress a draft resolution regarding an authorization for use of military force, or AUMF, against the terrorist group Islamic State. Although presidents have constitutional power to defend American national-security interests, seeking an AUMF is both constitutional and sound. The measure enables Congress to show its support for military efforts and encourages public approval of them. From the nation’s founding, dozens of AUMFs have been enacted. The 2001 resolution authorizing war against al Qaeda and its affiliates and the 2002 authorization of the Iraq war are only the most recent.

AUMFs also have legal significance. They buttress the president’s powers and, consistent with Supreme Court precedent, provide legal support when such aspects of war-fighting as electronic surveillance, detention of enemy combatants and use of deadly force against American nationals who have joined the enemy are challenged in court.

One can argue whether Congress’s constitutional power to declare war serves principally to distinguish formally among enemies, friends and neutrals, or has broader effect. However, AUMFs have become particularly important in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, as federal courts have involved themselves to an unprecedented degree in scrutinizing such activities. The relevant judicial decisions often cite the existence of an AUMF.

Despite the benefits of traditional AUMFs, President Obama’s proposal is fundamentally flawed. Attempting to obtain political cover for his strategy to fight Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, he has asked Congress to ban “enduring offensive ground operations” and to terminate the authorization after three years.

Read more »