Wapo: President Obama must enforce mandate.

[littlewolf]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-the-health-care-mandate-obama-reaches-beyond-the-law/2013/07/18/d4


Old-time monarchies and modern dictators govern by decree. Not so in the United States, where the Constitution does not give the president such power. So it is fair to wonder what authorized President Obama to “suspend” the portion of the Affordable Care Act that imposes a health-care mandate on employers.

snip

The Constitution also gives the president specific unilateral powers, such as the power to decide which foreign countries to recognize and the authority to grant pardons. The president can refuse to prosecute someone criminally because the Constitution gives the executive branch absolute prosecutorial discretion. That is how Obama justified not enforcing deportation laws in certain circumstances.

snip

The president also need not enforce a law that he believes is unconstitutional. Sound precedent justifies this power. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is, in effect, the lawyer for the government. It issues legal opinions that courts often rely on. It advises that the president may refuse to enforce a law he thinks is unconstitutional. It derived this power from two clauses of the Constitution: One requires the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The other requires him to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The OLC agreed with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who wrote in 1868 that the president’s obligation to defend the Constitution authorizes him to decline to enforce statutes that he believes violate it.

snip

The president does not, however, have carte blanche to refuse to enforce the law. “Obviously,” the OLC wrote in 1990, the president cannot “refuse to enforce a statute he opposes for policy reasons.” In 1838, the Supreme Court advised: “To contend that the obligation imposed on the President to see the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their execution is a novel construction of the constitution and entirely inadmissible.” When President Richard Nixon refused to spend funds that Congress had ordered him to spend, the court held without dissent in 1975 that the president must follow the federal statute, not his policy preferences.

snip

Obama’s decision to “suspend” the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act has no support in precedent and dramatically shifts the arc of presidential power. The Affordable Care Act has no provision giving the president power to suspend or postpone the mandate. The law requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health-insurance coverage or pay a penalty. Section 1513(d) of the act — titled “Effective Date” — stipulates that this mandate “shall apply” after “December 31, 2013.”

more at the link

[PoliticAverse]

1. If a Republican becomes president in 2016 could they just 'postpone' the mandate for 4 years? n/t

[Lee-Lee]

2. That would seem to be the precedent they are setting n/t

[kelliekat44]

3. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. It's getting tiresome. nt