Afternoon Must-Read: Ezra Klein: Why Boehner Is Suing Obama

Ezra Klein: Boehner is suing Obama so he doesn’t have to impeach him: “If Speaker John Boehner wins his lawsuit against President Barack Obama…

…Obama [will then] implement the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate without further delay. Which… might mean the court will order Obama to do something he has already done. What’s even odder about the suit is that Boehner hates Obamacare’s employer mandate. And the business groups that back Boehner hate Obamacare’s employer mandate. So Boehner is lifting heaven and earth to get the court to demand Obama more rapidly enforce a policy Boehner hates, that Boehner’s allies hate, and that Obama says he’s going to start enforcing in a few months anyway…. Boehner’s argument is that this isn’t about the mandate at all. It’s about the Constitution… Boehner… was House Majority Leader in May 2006, when President George W. Bush chose to waive Medicare Part D’s penalties for low-income and disabled seniors who signed up late…. There is little evident difference between Obama’s unilateral delay of the employer mandate in Obamacare and Bush’s unilateral delay of the late-enrollment penalties in Medicare Part D. But Boehner sees one as a threat to the republic while the other passed like a breeze in the night….

There’s another possible reading of Boehner’s lawsuit. Under this theory, Boehner’s lawsuit isn’t so much about reversing what Obama has done as it’s about stopping what Republicans might do…. Calls for impeachment are mounting…. Boehner… has watched ideas like this move from ridiculous to inevitable in an instant (see Government Shutdown, 2013). He also watched what happened the last time Republicans tried to impeach a president who was more popular than they were: they lost the midterm election and Newt Gingrich had to resign as Speaker of the House…. Boehner can argue that attempting impeachment before the case finishes would be counterproductive: if Republicans raise impeachment as a remedy there’s no way the courts will get involved. They’ll just let Congress work it out. Boehner is letting Republicans throw as many parties as they want in the House so he can make sure they don’t drink and drive home….

Boehner’s particular legislative genius is his ability to keep House conservatives from detonating the Republican Party while maintaining just enough conservative credibility to retain his speakership. This might be his masterstroke.