Congressman: Republicans Would Not Have Standing to Sue If Biden Uses 14th Amendment
President should just "faithfully execute the laws," Jamie Raskin says
Republicans would not have the legal standing to challenge President Biden in court if he were to invoke the 14th Amendment to ensure that the federal government continues to pay its bills and avoid default which would trigger a widespread economic calamity.
That's according to Rep Jamie Raskin (D-Md), who before entering Congress taught constitutional law at the at American University law school in Washington DC.
The federal government has hit its cap on paying its bills, and the extraordinary measures which the government has been using in the meantime will run out as early as June 1.
Although Congress has approved an increase in the government's debt limit dozens of times under presidents of both parties in past decades, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans want to hold such an increase hostage to Biden and Democrats agreeing to a raft of draconian cuts in federal spending.
However, a number of Democrats in Congress are pushing President Biden to sidestep McCarthy's gamesmanship and instead invoke the 14th Amendment as an option to bypass the debt ceiling and allow the US government to continue paying its bills.
Among those bills at-risk should the government default: $10 billion in military pay and retirement pay for US veterans; $47 billion in payments to Medicare providers; $25 billion in Social Security benefits for seniors and disabled Americans; $1 billion in SNAP food aid benefits that help kids eat; and $1 billion in individual tax refunds for people who file their taxes.
Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution ensures government debts are paid.
That section reads:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Despite concern that use of the 14th Amendment in this case would invite legal challenges from angry Republicans, Raskin disputes that notion.
“One consequence of our having won the presidency is that President Biden doesn’t have to go and sue anybody. We’re playing defense. All he has to do is faithfully execute the laws, as he’s sworn to do under Article 2 of the Constitution, and respect the full faith and credit of the United States by not dishonoring the debts that we’ve already incurred,” Raskin said. “In other words, he’s just gotta pay the bills.
“And then, if [Republican Reps] Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz, if they want to go to court, they’ve got to prove, first why they have standing? How are they injured by other people getting their bills paid?” Raskin added. “And even if they’re somehow able to overcome that, this is a political question for the political branches to work out. And even if they’re able to overcome that, well, then they’ve gotta prove somehow that their rights have been violated because other people got their bills paid.
“And what’s their remedy for that? They are suing the Social Security recipients to tell them to return their money to the U.S. government? They’re suing the bondholders of America to tell them to return their money that’s rightfully theirs to the U.S. government? I don’t think so,” he said. “So, I know this is an extremist Supreme Court, but I don’t think they’re willing to further drive the government United States into a ditch with the MAGA extremists. In any event, we can’t allow them to intimidate those of us who want to follow the law in the clear meaning and sense of the Constitution. We don’t repudiate the debts of United States.”
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