Who can you get to sue the most powerful man in the world, these days? No longer has Republican Speaker John Boehner made his headlines by announcing plans to sue President Obama when two law firms engaged have quit.
What’s a poor Speaker to do?
Why did the firms quit in the first place?
Vox report that the historically unprecedented lawsuit over delaying Obamacare’s employer mandate has simply lead to months of delays and no lawsuit. As Vox say:
There’s been some speculation that Speaker John Boehner was intentionally slow-walking the process until after the election, not wanting to jeopardize the party’s potential Senate gains by reviving headlines of House GOP overreach.
This week, however, Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Maggie Haberman reported that Boehner’s actually been having serious problems even finding a law firm willing to file the suit — two have tentatively signed on, and then gotten cold feet. Originally, attorney David Rivkin — who crafted the unique legal arguments Boehner used to justify the suit — was supposed to draw up the suit itself. But his firm, Baker Hostetler, pulled out. More recently, Bill Burck of the firm Quinn Emanuel was also tentatively hired, until similarly backing away.
Though the suit’s legal arguments have been met with skepticism by scholars, Gerstein and Haberman report that the trouble here is more political — some clients simply didn’t want each firm involved in such a controversial suit. Boehner’s spokesperson told the reporters that the suit would still go ahead, but perhaps would be crafted entirely by lawyers employed by the House, rather than an outside firm.
