Recently, the SCOTUS has been busy whittling away at the imperial presidency. In a pair of rulings, the SCOTUS has restricted the POTUS's agenda of merging the executive with the legislative branches of government into one unit that bypasses Congress and imposes its will on the American people.
In the NLRB v. Canning decision, a unanimous Court held that the Obama administration could not claim that a brief recess allowed it to make recess appointments to the NLRB. The administration stretched the meaning of recess appointment as per the Constitution to pack the NLRB with members that would do its bidding. Fearful of Republican obstruction prior to a change in the filibuster rules in the Senate that would delay votes on his nominees, the administration looked for loopholes to get its way and decided to stretch the meaning of recess appointment well beyond its original definition. That the decision was unanimous is a severe rebuke to the POTUS's attempt to grab more legislative power from Congress.
In more practical terms, there are probably a few thousand rulings made by the NLRB by these renegade appointees that now have to be vacated. This throws thousands of employees and employers into a legal limbo while the courts sort out what happened during the time the appointees were voting on cases and issuing rulings. In his haste to grab more power for himself, the POTUS has added yet another layer of frustration and uncertainty to the everyday lives of the citizenry.
This frustration and uncertainty is even more pronounced in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case. Contrary to popular opinion, this was not another step on the putative war on women. This case involved two federal laws -- Obamacare and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") of 1993 -- that were in conflict. To be sure, the portion of Obamacare that was at issue was the requirement that Hobby Lobby, run by Evangelical Christians, provide contraception coverage to its employees. Again, contrary to what is being reported, Hobby Lobby only demurred on four contraceptive methods known to be abortifacients, or ones that cause abortions, not every contraceptive method known to exist. In a narrow 5-4 ruling the SCOTUS ruled that closely held companies can, under the RFRA, raise their religious beliefs as an objection to the Obamacare requirement to provide health insurance including abortifacient contraceptive coverage.
Liberals are outraged. They seem to think that there is a legal right to contraceptive coverage somewhere in the Federal Code. There is not. There is, however, a First Amendment to the United States Constitution that provides for the freedom to practice one's religion without government infringement. What could be more invasive than being told by government to do something contrary to one's religious belief? That people can't see this is stultifying.
Those who are in disbelief at the Hobby Lobby ruling better brace themselves. In the near future the SCOTUS may rule on a similar lawsuit that involves the Catholic Church's opposition to providing contraception coverage. Unlike Hobby Lobby, the Catholic Church is not a for-profit organization (although there are those who would disagree) but a truly religious body whose faith disagrees with abortion. Nuns in Kentucky were told they had to provide contraception coverage under Obamacare to their employees. If Hobby Lobby was exempt from this requirement, how can nuns be required to follow it? Stranger things have happened, I suppose, but I think this will form the third leg on the stool that the POTUS will be forced to sit in the corner to think about his overreaching.
Meanwhile, momentum continues to build to impeach the POTUS. For reasons I've set forth elsewhere, I think it would be foolish to impeach him, no matter how warranted. Better would be to focus on both the upcoming midterm elections and the 2016 presidential election. By no means does this suggest satisfaction with the POTUS's job performance. It's simply a strategic decision whose goal is to reassert the true American form of government.
In the meanwhile, something occurred to me with the Canning decision: The POTUS should stay away from anything that uses an abbreviation as its designation. Consider the problems he's had over the last couple of years: The IRS, the VA, the NSA and now the NLRB.
It's fitting that he's having trouble with abbreviations, considering how he's been trying to abbreviate the rights of Americans.
(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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