WASHINGTON, July 16 (RIA Novosti) - The members of US Congress during a Wednesday Rules Committee hearing considered arguments from legal experts explaining the reasons and grounds to follow through on a lawsuit against President Barack Obama.
Elizabeth Price Foley, Professor of Law at Florida International University College of Law, told members of the Committee “the House has standing” to sue the President for “institutional injury,” making the case that the lawsuit against Obama, initiated by House Speaker John A. Boehner, could succeed.
Foley believes that even if the current President does not fully abuse executive authority, his unilateral decision-taking will set a precedent of executive overreach that could become dangerous in the hands of a future president.
Drawing on the subject of violating constitutional provisions, Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, stated that the President has no authority “to go it alone, ordering changes to the law as a majority of one.”
He continued in his opening statements, that the President's “executive prerogative” is a “sirens call,” which should be heeded.
“It is dangerous when one person steps forward and says, ‘I can get it done,’” Turley warned the Committee, tasked with investigating the basis and debating the merits of a lawsuit against US President.
Beohner's litigation focuses specifically on the Affordable Care Act, whereby Obama single-handedly delayed the implementation of the employer mandate under the legislation in question. Boehner questions Obama's decision to postpone for one to two years a requirement that employers provide health insurance starting 2014, because Obama allegedly “created his own law” by doing so.
