We The People: A profile in discouragement

We need some lawsuit reform. Our court system dispenses justice guided by the law and the rules of evidence. Plaintiffs seek money to redress the damage done to them for an injury or for a violation of rights.

This legal system where people can sue for just compensation has been the backbone of American jurisprudence since the time the Mayflower landed. The system has been described as imperfect but the only one which provides relief to victims and discourages wrongdoing. However, it encourages litigation and motivates attorneys to bring questionable cases to court.

It should start in Washington, D.C. House Speaker John Boehner announced he intends to clog the docket of the court system further. He intends to sue the president of the United States while the president is in office for not “faithfully executing the laws of our country.”

Boehner stated that he will introduce legislation in the House to authorize the lawsuit. Will he need the President to sign the bill? This is a colossal waste of time and effort when there are issues that deserve the undivided attention of our leaders.

Boehner is creating a dog-and-pony show to amuse Republicans donors while he reaches into their pockets. It is something the speaker does very well.

Mr. Boehner alleged that the president has circumvented Congress and taken executive action on foreign policy, healthcare and energy. If Mr. Obama did take extraordinary action in some areas, it is because the only other option for him with a do-nothing Republican Congress would be to play golf.

This Congress is on its way to becoming the most loathed and despised organization in the United States. The speaker believes a baseless and pointless distraction is a good form of leadership.

Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) predicted that voters will remember this nonsense at election time, and that it will hurt and not help Republicans at the polls. If the president truly violated the Constitution, the Republican Congress should seek to impeach Mr. Obama.

It is hard to determine if what Mr. Boehner stands for other than himself. He is the Speaker of the House but it seems that he can only communicate through the insincere, glad-handed, self-serving double-talk of a perpetual political candidate.

We need leaders who are skilled at leading, not politicians skilled at politics. His shallowness and ineffectiveness have caused him to be described as “the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.” It is no title for a true leader.

Boehner, in 1995, as the fourth ranking Republican in Congress, was caught handing out donation checks to representatives from the tobacco lobby on the floor of the House. He used to live in an apartment rented to him by John Milne, a Beltway lobbyist who represents health insurance companies, and his PAC used to shell out tens of thousands of dollars so he could golf around the country.

He can accomplish these things but he cannot negotiate a plan with the White House to control spending, to deal with energy policy or to effect immigration reform.

The ACA, despite criticism, has not increased the deficit, has met its enrollment targets and has not inflated the cost of healthcare. It offers coverage to 26 million young Americans who would have been left uninsured without the ACA. Perhaps Mr. Boehner should sue the president on it as well.

He might have considered suing for a declaratory judgment that stated if global warming does exist, it is a good thing because it will reduce heating costs during the winter. I suppose that would never have been approved by the oil corporations’ lobbyists.

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