Boehner

At Politico, Tim Alberta profiles former House Speaker John Boehner:

The funding of pet projects in lawmakers’ districts helped leadership to keep members in line, but fueled a culture of venality and waste; boondoggles like the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a 2005 project calling for a $223 million earmark to construct a bridge to a remote, sparsely populated Alaska island, became symbols of congressional excess. Boehner never accepted an earmark in Congress—and he enjoyed railing against those who did. His heckling once provoked Don Young, an Alaskan himself, to pin Boehner against a wall inside the House chamber and hold a 10-inch knife to his throat. Boehner says he stared Young in the eyes and said, “F--- you.” (Young says this account is “mostly true,” but notes that the two became good friends, with Boehner later serving as his best man.)

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“We’ve got some of the smartest people in America who serve in the Congress, and we’ve got some of the dumbest. We have some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, and some that are Nazis. Congress is nothing more than a slice of America.”
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“I never went to New York without seeing Ailes. He and I were friends. But it was the most bizarre meeting I’d ever had. He had black helicopters flying all around his head that morning. It was every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard, and I’m throwing cold water on all this bullshit.”
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He continues: “I always liked Rush [Limbaugh]. When I went to Palm Beach I would always meet with Rush and we’d go play golf. But you know, who was that right-wing guy, [Mark] Levin? He went really crazy right and got a big audience, and he dragged [Sean] Hannity to the dark side. He dragged Rush to the dark side. And these guys—I used to talk to them all the time. And suddenly they’re beating the living shit out of me.” Boehner, seated in his favorite recliner, lights another cigarette. “I had a conversation with Hannity, probably about the beginning of 2015. I called him and said, ‘Listen, you’re nuts.’ We had this really blunt conversation. Things were better for a few months, and then it got back to being the same-old, same-old. Because I wasn’t going to be a right-wing idiot.”

Waning WASP Male Power

Catholic Paul Ryan is likely to succeed Catholic John Boehner as speaker of the House.. Accordingly, what Alan Greenblatt wrote at NPR three years ago is still true:

There are plenty of white men with power in this country, but it's become harder to find a WASP holding onto one of the top rungs of the political ladder.

The State Department was once dominated by old-stock aristocrats but hasn't been led by a white man since 1997. Among the four top congressional leaders, only one is a WASP — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who happens to be married to an Asian-American.

The Supreme Court, for the first time in its history, does not boast of a single justice who is Protestant. Instead, there are three Jews and six Catholics — one of them Hispanic, one of them black. And since the 2009 confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor, the court also includes three women justices for the first time ever.

"Not a single group can hold onto power in any particular institution going forward," says Guy-Uriel Charles, founding director of the Duke Law Center on Law, Race and Politics. "This reflects the fact that we are much more of an open society than we were previously, but we are also a society that by the numbers is increasingly diverse."

McConnell has since become majority leader, with Harry Reid (a Mormon) becoming minority leader.

Boehner and the Limits of Power

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) writes at The New York Times about the conservative discontent that led to the resignation of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).   Under Boehner's leadership, the House GOP regained its majority in 2010.

But somewhere along the road, a number of voices on the right began demanding that the Republican Congress not only block Mr. Obama’s agenda but enact a reversal of his policies. They took to the airwaves and the Internet and pronounced that congressional Republicans could undo the president’s agenda — with him still in office, mind you — and enact into law a conservative vision for government, without compromise. 

Strangely, according to these voices, the only reason that was not occurring had nothing to do with the fact that the president was unlikely to repeal his own laws, or that under the Constitution, absent the assent of the president or two-thirds of both houses of Congress, you cannot make law. The problem was a lack of will on the part of congressional Republican leaders.
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The tragedy here is that these voices have not been honest with our fellow conservatives. They have not been honest about what can be accomplished when your party controls Congress, but not the White House. As a result we missed chances to achieve important policies for the good of the country. 

The response I often hear to these points is: “Well, Republicans at least need to fight.” On this I agree. It is imperative that we fight for what we believe in. But we should fight smartly. I have never heard of a football team that won by throwing only Hail Mary passes, yet that is what is being demanded of Republican leaders today. Victory on the field is more often a result of three yards and a cloud of dust. In politics this means incremental progress, winning hearts and minds before winning the vote — the kind of governance Ronald Reagan perfected.

The Netanyahu Visit and the Constitution

Without consulting the president, House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress.  At The Washington Post, law professor David Bernstein writes that the move is arguably unconstitutional:

Here’s the logic of the “unconstitutional” position: (a) the power to receive ambassadors and public ministers a foritiori includes the power to receive foreign heads of state when they are here on diplomatic business; (b) this power is lodged by Constitution in the executive, and, explicitly given to the executive, Congress can’t exercise it unless at the invitation of the president. There is good reason for this, because while Congress has a role in foreign policy, direct diplmoatic relations with foreign governments are exclusive in the executive, so the nation speaks with one voice–Congress could not have its own State Department, for example; and (c) Netanyahu is coming to speak to Congress on a formal diplomatic mission, not for mere private conversation or consultation, and thus the president has to give his assent, or at least Congress shouldn’t do it over the president’s objection. None of these three points is unassailable, but they do strike me as likely being right.

Compromise and the Constitution

One reason why the government has shut down is that a number of hard-liners in the House oppose compromise.  At National Affairs, Jonathan Rauch writes:

The Constitution was designed to do many things at once. Modern conservatives who say it set limits on the power of government are correct. Modern progressives who say it created a flexible framework to promote the general welfare are also correct. Those who say it established federal supremacy are as correct as those who say it safeguarded the sovereignty of the states.

The foremost thing it does, however, is embodied in its structure, rather than its text. It forces politicians to compromise, by creating competing power centers and depriving any of them of the power to impose its will on the others. The resulting system is often referred to as one of "checks and balances," but that phrase, as William Connelly, Jr., notes in his 2010 book James Madison Rules America, fails to do justice to both the intricacy and the dynamism of the constitutional order.

The Constitution forces compromise not merely between the branches, levels, and institutions of government but also within each of them, and within each of the parties that populate them. Members of the majority party in each chamber of Congress must negotiate with one another to garner votes, and members of the minority party must negotiate with one another about whether to cooperate with the majority or obstruct it. "Factions within each party constantly fight over whether they are part of the government or part of the opposition," writes Connelly. "The majority party in Congress is not the government, nor is the minority party merely the opposition, whether under conditions of divided government or even under conditions of so-called united party government. Neither Democrats nor Republicans govern; rather, the Constitution governs."

He adds that although the Madisonian system will compel compromise, spoilers who oppose compromise can cause trouble along the way.

In particular, spoilers have three pernicious effects. First, they make it difficult for leaders to lead. If any deal that a leader brings back from negotiations is suspect precisely because it is a deal, and if any leader who brings back such a deal is likely to be accused of treason by a significant share of his base, then it will be hard for a leader either to accept or deliver on a compromise — exactly the kind of problem that has weakened House speaker John Boehner in recent years.

Second, the presence of a knot of spoilers on one side increases polarization by hardening opinion on the other side. Why compromise, after all, if you think the other side will put any concessions in its pocket and then ask for more without giving any ground? "We won't compromise because they won't" is not an unreasonable attitude. As opposing positions polarize and harden, the substantive ground for compromise shrinks, and the trust necessary to find it erodes. That, in turn, makes it harder, not easier, to make painful but important policy changes such as long-term budget restraints or entitlement reform.

Finally, either party's isolation from the political mainstream, and from the mainstream's acceptance of the give-and-take of transactional politics, is undesirable in its own right. At some point, when insurgent voices within a party become dominant (or at least disproportionately influential), that party will begin behaving less like a party and more like an interest group

Party Whipping Is Not Like "House of Cards"

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has a much tougher time than his Netflix counterpart Frank Underwood (D-SC).  The Washington Post explains:

Simply put, McCarthy can’t guarantee success, in part because party power is not what it used to be on Capitol Hill, especially for the GOP.

Promises of special projects in the home district — a bridge here, a road there — no longer exist as an enticement. Pledges of fundraising help often draw little interest in the age of super PACs, which can deliver huge sums to a favored campaign on a moment’s notice. [Strictly speaking, the Super PAC money goes to independent expenditures, not the candidate's own campaign.] Personal pleas for fealty to party leaders fall on deaf ears among a new generation of conservatives who often prefer to be more closely allied with external movement leaders than with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

All these complicating factors were on full display this week as more than 60 Republicans opposed the House leaders, joining Democrats to defeat a five-year farm bill. The bill was crafted to address the conservative ethos that now controls the caucus. It cut food-stamp programs and eliminated some cash payments to farmers. But for most of those Republicans, it wasn’t conservative enough, and they were willing to let it die.

Boehner, Health Care, and Congressional Coverage

A Politico report suggests that Speaker John Boehner is involved in talks to exempt lawmakers and staff from the insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act.  If the report is accurate, Boehner's stance is peculiar.  In 1995, he voted for the Congressional Accountability Act (aka the Shays Act) to cover Congress under certain laws from which it had exempted itself. On January 4 of that year, Boehner said:

But I hope there will be two things that come as a result of this legislation actually being enacted. First is that Members will begin to realize when we are drafting bills and we are building bills here on the floor, that the full weight of these bills will in fact fall upon us as Members of Congress. I think that with the passage of this bill, that Members will recognize that fact, that we are going to have to live under these. We might be a little more cautious.

 Second, I would point out that we ought to, as we begin to live under these laws, we are going to realize that the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, and other laws we have exempted ourselves from, are rather weighty. They are weighty on the private sector, and they are going to be very difficult for all of the Members to comply with under our current structure. So we are going to have two choices, and we ought to have a debate about whether we should continue to live under the laws as they were drafted, or whether in fact we ought to go back and listen to what the American people said on November 8 when they said Government is too big, it spends too much, and is too intrusive, and maybe we ought to look at some of those laws and revise a lot of them.

A Critical View of State of the Union Speeches

George Will deplores the practice of delivering the State of the Union as a speech instead of a written message:

When the Founding generation was developing customs and manners appropriate to a republic, George Washington and John Adams made the mistake of going to Congress to do their constitutional duty of informing and recommending. Jefferson, however, disliked the sound of his voice — such an aversion is a vanishingly rare presidential virtue — and considered it monarchical for the executive to lecture the legislature, the lofty instructing underlings. So he sent written thoughts to Capitol Hill, a practice good enough for subsequent presidents until Wilson in 1913 delivered his message orally, pursuant to the progressives’ belief in inspirational and tutelary presidents.

It is beyond unseemly, it is anti-constitutional for senior military officers and, even worse, Supreme Court justices to attend these political rallies where, with metronomic regularity, legislators of the president’s party leap to their feet to whinny approval of every bromide and vow. Members of the other party remain theatrically stolid, thereby provoking brow-furrowing punditry about why John Boehner did not rise (to genuflect? salute? swoon?) when Barack Obama mentioned this or that. Tuesday night, the justices, generals and admirals, looking as awkward as wallflowers at a prom, at least stayed seated.

In any case, the speech is no longer meeting the Wilsonian goal of swaying public opinion, because the public is not watching.  Constitution Daily reports:

The final TV viewership numbers are in for President Obama’s State of the Union speech, and the broadcast hit a historic low in one of two key ratings categories.

Nielsen says the State of the Union was seen by 33.5 million people, which is the lowest number since 2000 and the second-lowest total since 1993, when the agency first started combined measuring for the event.

The combined rating for the 2013 speech was 21.5, which is the lowest in history. President Bill Clinton’s speech in 2000 had a rating of 22.4. The rating number represents the percentage of possible households that have TV sets and could watch the speech.

In other words, nearly 80 percent of American households skipped watching the State of the Union live or on a tape-delayed basis on TV.

Party Discipline in the House (Warning: Strong Language!)

Party discipline in Congress may involve punishments.  They happen rarely, but they do happen, Jonathan Allen reports at Politico (WARNING: PROCTOLOGICAL EPITHET):

Back-bench freshmen Justin Amash, Tim Huelskamp and David Schweikert are gaining martyr status among conservative activists after they were “purged” from House committees for what they say is a matter of sticking to their principles on tough votes.

But some of their colleagues say the trio got yanked by the leadership-driven Republican Steering Committee because they’re jerks — or worse.

In an interview with POLITICO, one member of the Steering Committee called them “the most egregious assholes” in the House Republican Conference.

The argument: This went beyond voting records. The members who were booted made life harder for other Republicans by taking whacks at them in public for supporting the team, according to Republican sources familiar with the Steering Committee’s decision.
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The fight has obscured an important shift in insider House politics, as these were the first members pulled off committees as punishment for political or personality reasons in nearly two decades. Even Tom DeLay, the fearsome majority leader known for hardball tactics, drew the line there.

By exacting retribution, party leaders sent a strong message to the Republican rank and file that they won’t tolerate members of the conference attacking each other in public. That’s a welcome message for some lawmakers who had urged leaders to attach consequences to working against the goals of the party.
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Part of the reason for the talk of stripping committee assignments is that earmarks have been banned. Without that carrot, the stick of conditional committee service has been an increasingly appealing tool to foster unity.

“The guys who are taking heat for taking tough votes back home don’t understand why there aren’t consequences for people who don’t do the same thing,” explained one leadership aide.

Roll Call reports on a meeting of the conservative Republican Study Committee:

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, a staunch conservative who sits on the Republican Steering Committee that made the decision to remove the lawmakers, said he became increasingly angry while listening to the discussion and ended up providing the most detailed defense yet for the decisions.

“I couldn’t help but kind of speak up for the steering committee and the leadership,” he told CQ Roll Call in a phone interview after the meeting.

“What I tried to explain to them was, it didn’t have anything to do with your voting record, a scorecard, your work across the street or anything else. It had to do with your ability to work within the system and to try to work. And to be, I guess, constructive in things. And I said, ‘I guess you could say it was an asshole factor,’” Westmoreland said. “Now I wasn’t calling any member in particular an asshole, I was just trying to describe an environment where some people that you’re trying to work with, they just don’t want to work within the system.”

History and the Ryan Choice

Mitt Romney has chosen Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)  as his running mate.  This choice is historically significant in at least three respects.

1.  Romney is Mormon and Ryan is Catholic, so Romney-Ryan will be the first ticket in history without a Protestant.  Indeed, despite the longtime dominance of WASPs in American society, no white Protestant heads any of the branches of American government.  President Obama is African American.  Vice President Biden and Speaker John Boehner are Catholic.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is Mormon.  No Protestant currently sits on the Supreme Court.  And if one counts the Federal Reserve as a "fourth branch" of sorts, the same holds true:  Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is Jewish.

2.  For the first time since 1932, neither ticket will include a military veteran -- another sign of the growing gap between the military and the rest of society. (Only 21 percent of members of Congress are veterans.)

3.  Ryan was born on January 29, 1970, so he is the first nominee of either party born after the 1960s.  If we define the "baby boom" as consisting of those born between 1946 and 1964 (definitions vary), then he is the first post-boomer nominee.  (Sarah Palin, born 1964, just barely qualifies as a boomer.)

John Boehner on Leadership and the House

Our chapter on Congress examines the role of leadership and the character of the institution's membership. In an interview with Peggy Noonan, House Speaker John Boehner reflects on these subjects:

"People think I've got this job as a leader. They don't realize that I have about 200 responsibilities and roles. I've gotta be the big brother, the father, I gotta be the disciplinarian, the dean of students, the principal, the spouse—you can't believe all the roles that I have to play! But one of them is, you know, some problems you can nip early. I had three guys in here a few years ago, I said 'Boys, you're cruising down the wrong path.' Two of them listened, one of them didn't. He's no longer here."

"We got 435 members. It's just a slice of America, it really is. We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest. We got some of the best people you'd ever meet, and some of the raunchiest. We've got 'em all."

How does word reach him that a scandal may be brewing? "Oh, it gets to me a lot of ways. The press, I hear about it from friends, I hear about it from colleagues. I'm out and about, I do what I do, I hear everything. There are no secrets in this town."

In his time, has congressional misbehavior, publicly known or not, tended to go under the broadly defined category of "romance" or of "finance"? 

 A long sigh.

"Rarely is money an issue." 

GOP Rapid Response

Political figures are embracing social media, not just in campaigns, but in day-to-day politics between elections. Jennifer Steinhauer writes at The New York Times:

Barely a minute goes by between the time Mr. Obama — or a high-ranking member of his administration — makes a speech, holds a news conference or says something to a talk show host, and a team of young Republican House staffers, fueled by pizza and partisanship, punches back.

It’s a bit of a table turn on Mr. Obama, whose 2008 campaign capitalized on social media in a way that left Republicans bruised and scrambling. Now, after a post-election order from Speaker John A. Boehner that year, House Republicans have embraced Twitter as their karaoke microphone to push their message against the White House bullhorn.

The insta-Tweet has revolutionized rapid response operations that just two years ago relied heavily on cable television, e-mails and news conferences to spread the word of the opposition, which often took a day or two to gain momentum. That time lag could delay the message from taking hold, a result Republicans were eager to undo.

Sarah Peters writes at The Hill:

Republicans have again co-opted an Obama administration slogan to mock the president.

On Monday, the GOP used Obama's #WeCantWait hashtag to criticize Democrats for the state of the economy.

"#WeCantWait to make @BarackObama a one-term president," tweeted Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

The Schedule Debate

James Madison rules America: the separation of powers limits what a president can do. That's the lesson from yesterday's scuffle over the scheduling of the president's speech to Congress. Chad Pergram writes:

"I respectfully request the opportunity to address a Joint Session of Congress on September 7, 2011, at 8:00 pm," wrote President Obama to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) around noontime Wednesday.

The president's entreaty to speak to Congress in prime-time, State of the Union-style, triggered a strange, "only inside the Beltway" kerfuffle which focused on the rules of etiquette and decorum.

Usually the Speaker of the House invites the president to Congress for remarks. It's the speaker's invitation to extend. There's usually some back and forth as to the date and time. But that usually goes on behind the scenes via email and the phone.

But on Wednesday, the logistical volleying played out in public. And it quickly devolved into catcalls from both sides of the aisle. The intense rhetoric soon drowned the proposed theme of the speech: jobs and fixing the economy.

Moments after the White House released the president's letter to the press, I reminded my FOX colleagues that it's up to Boehner to actually invite Mr. Obama. He just can't show up. It's not his domain. A few co-workers wondered if this would just be a formality.

Probably, I responded, joking that if Boehner didn't accede to President Obama's request, we'd then have a story.

And sure enough, we did.

First of all, the president's proposed date sideswiped a nationally-televised GOP presidential candidates debate at the Reagan Library. Would the debate go on? Was the president trying to quash the Republican message?

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The Speaker of the House fired a shot across the president's bow a little past 4 pm.

"The House of Representatives and Senate are each required to adopt a Concurrent Resolution to allow for a Joint Session of Congress to receive the President. And as the Majority Leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, September 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening," wrote Boehner to Mr. Obama. "With the significant amount of time - typically more than three hours - that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House Chamber before receiving a President, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks."

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The sides continued to trade barbs. But it became quickly evident who would win this struggle.

President Obama may be the most powerful man in the world. But even the power of the presidency has curbs in the halls of Congress.

This phenomenon is distilled into two basic elements of American government.

First, the Speaker of the House is the Constitutional Officer of the legislative branch. Secondly, the will of a sole senator can gum up the United States Senate.

Boehner controls the House. Nearly all Joint Sessions of Congress occur in the House chamber. And during such convocations, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate (who, according to the Constitution, is also the Vice President) preside.

One need to look no further than any garden-variety State of the Union speech to observe how this works.

Watch where the president speaks during a Joint Session of Congress. He delivers his address from the second level of the House dais, one level immediately below the Speaker's rostrum. Of course, that's where the Speaker of the House and Vice President sit. They are in charge (specifically the House Speaker), peering over the shoulder of their invited guest (the president).

In addition, it's the responsibility of the Speaker of the House to formally present the honored guest to all lawmakers after the president is in place on the dais.

So, Mr. Obama would be the star attraction. But it's John Boehner's show.

Then, there are the Senate rules.

As Boehner indicated, both chambers must approve a Joint Session of Congress. Had Boehner deferred to the president and propounded a resolution providing for Congress to conduct the Joint Session on September 7, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) threatened to singlehandedly derail the entire process.

"The President should pick another night," said DeMint in a statement. "If he insists on playing politics by picking the night of the GOP debate, I will object to the session."

In the modern Senate, few agonize about an actual filibuster, ala Jimmy Stewart commanding the floor for hours in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Instead, the most grave manifestation is the THREAT of a filibuster.

And that is precisely what Jim DeMint promised to do.

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This is one of the reasons why the White House relented on Wednesday night.

"We appreciate the president working with us tonight and look forward to hearing his new proposals," said Boehner aide Brendan Buck after the president agreed to speak on September 8.

It's reminiscent of a well-known dictum at the gaming tables in Las Vegas: "The house always wins."

And when it comes to conduct a Joint Session of Congress, that maxim applies in Washington, too.

Young John Boehner and the Balanced Budget Amendment

The current debate on the debt ceiling has drawn attention to a proposed constitutional amendment to balance the budget. The idea has been around for a long time. In 1992, it got support from an Ohio freshman named John Boehner (R-OH). The clips shows that, although the numbers have changed, the basic arguments for and against the idea have remained largely the same. Toward the end of the clip, Boehner talks about freshman legislators: "I think those people come to Congress closer to with folks at home, [with] more courage to do what's right and willing to make those tough decisions."

The Speaker and the Debt

Edmund Burke wrote: "In all bodies, those who will lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow." House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has had to grapple with "tea party" demands on the budget, and may end up with more success than many had expected, as The Daily Beast reports:

The conventional Beltway wisdom is that Boehner is floundering, unable to control his caucus, caught in a vise between Tea Party demands and the need to avoid a devastating default for which Republicans would shoulder much of the blame.

But that verdict misses the magnitude of what the low-key party veteran may accomplish. By forging a debt-ceiling compromise with Democrats that will meet almost no Democratic demands, Boehner will lock down his role as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party—and finally prove to skeptics that the Ohio pragmatist can indeed lead a party of purists and get a few things done in the process.

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“The best way to describe it is to say he’s threading a needle. He’s trying to placate conservatives and help his party in the next election, while also solidifying his own position,” says Matthew Green, a professor of political science at Catholic University and author of The Speaker: A Study of Leadership. “On the other hand he doesn’t want to be known as the speaker who let the U.S. default on its obligations. I guess all I can say is I’m glad I’m not in his position.”

President Obama inadvertently strengthened conservative resolve with his Monday televised address, when he mentioned President Reagan’s support of a 1982 tax increase. Perhaps his speechwriters didn’t know how Republicans view that chapter of congressional history. President Reagan and congressional Republicans came to regret the 1982 measure, believing that the Democrats had sold them higher taxes in exchange for spending cuts that never materialized. The measure antagonized the public, split Republicans, and contributed to GOP losses in the 1982 midterm election. Even Republicans who weren’t serving in 1982 have heard the story, which is Exhibit A in the case against a “grand bargain.” Exhibit B is the first President Bush;s "grand bargain" in 1990, when he accepted higher taxes and got the Budget Enforcement Act. Many scholars argue that it was a long-term success, but it proved a big problem for the GOP in 1992, when Bill Clinton ran attack ads blasting the president for breaking his “no new taxes” pledge.

Boehner, Obama, and War Powers

The speaker of the House has delivered a warning to the president (links added):

Washington (Jun 14)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today sent a letter to President Barack Obama informing him that the administration will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution unless authorization from Congress is received or the military withdraws from operations in Libya by this Sunday. With only five days until the 90-day mark for U.S. military operations in Libya, the Speaker is seeking a clear explanation of the legal standing under the War Powers Resolution by which the administration believes it has the authority to continue operations after Sunday, June 19, 2011. The text of the letter is below.

June 14, 2011

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President

Five days from now, our country will reach the 90-day mark from the notification to Congress regarding the commencement of the military operation in Libya, which began on March 18, 2011. On June 3, 2011, the House passed a resolution which, among other provisions, made clear that the Administration has not asked for, nor received, Congressional authorization of the mission in Libya. Therefore, it would appear that in five days, the Administration will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution unless it asks for and receives authorization from Congress or withdraws all U.S. troops and resources from the mission.

Since the mission began, the Administration has provided tactical operational briefings to the House of Representatives, but the White House has systematically avoided requesting a formal authorization for its action. It has simultaneously sought, however, to portray that its actions are consistent with the War Powers Resolution. The combination of these actions has left many Members of Congress, as well as the American people, frustrated by the lack of clarity over the Administration’s strategic policies, by a refusal to acknowledge and respect the role of the Congress, and by a refusal to comply with the basic tenets of the War Powers Resolution.

You took an oath before the American people on January 20, 2009 in which you swore to "faithfully execute the Office of President" and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." The Constitution requires the President to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," and one of those laws is the War Powers Resolution, which requires an approving action by Congress or withdrawal within 90 days from the notification of a military operation. Given the mission you have ordered to the U.S. Armed Forces with respect to Libya and the text of the War Powers Resolution, the House is left to conclude that you have made one of two determinations: either you have concluded the War Powers Resolution does not apply to the mission in Libya, or you have determined the War Powers Resolution is contrary to the Constitution. The House, and the American people whom we represent, deserve to know the determination you have made.

Therefore, on behalf of the institution and the American people, I must ask you the following questions: Have you or your Administration conducted the legal analysis to justify your position as to whether your Administration views itself to be in compliance with the War Powers Resolution so that it may continue current operations, absent formal Congressional support or authorization, once the 90-day mark is reached? Assuming you conducted that analysis, was it with the consensus view of all stakeholders of the relevant Departments in the Executive branch? In addition, has there been an introduction of a new set of facts or circumstances which would have changed the legal analysis the Office of Legal Counsel released on April 1, 2011? Given the gravity of the constitutional and statutory questions involved, I request your answer by Friday, June 17, 2011.

From the beginning, the House of Representatives has sought to balance two equal imperatives regarding Libya which have been in direct contradiction: the House of Representatives takes seriously America’s leadership role in the world; our country’s interests in the region; and the commitments to and from its steadfast allies. At the same time, strong concern and opposition exists to the use of military force when the military mission, by design, cannot secure a U.S. strategic policy objective. The ongoing, deeply divisive debate originated with a lack of genuine consultation prior to commencement of operations and has been further exacerbated by the lack of visibility and leadership from you and your Administration.

I respect your authority as Commander-in-Chief, though I remain deeply concerned the Congress has not been provided answers from the Executive branch to fundamental questions regarding the Libya mission necessary for us to fulfill our equally important Constitutional responsibilities. I believe in the moral leadership our country can and should exhibit, especially during such a transformational time in the Middle East. I sincerely hope the Administration will faithfully comply with the War Powers Resolution and the requests made by the House of Representatives, and that you will use your unique authority as our President to engage the American people regarding our mission in Libya.

Respectfully,

John A. Boehner

Deliberation in the White House and Capitol Hill

AP reports:

President Barack Obama has ordered a more patient, deliberative style of governance from his aides and Cabinet members in the wake of a convulsive week surrounding the ouster of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

After telling Sherrod he regretted her forced resignation over racial remarks she made to an NAACP audience, Obama said in a nationally broadcast network interview he believes Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack "jumped the gun" in sacking the veteran Georgian federal worker.

A furor erupted this week over a conservative blogger's posting of portions of a speech Sherrod gave in which she told of giving short shrift attention 24 years ago to the pleas for financial aid by a poor white farmer. Sherrod is black, and the operator of the website BigGovernment.com posted a portion of her speech. The blogger, Andrew Breitbart, said he did so to illustrate racism within the NAACP, which earlier accused the tea party of having racist elements.

In an interview, House Republican Leader John Boehner discussed how his party would run the House if it regained a majority:

He said he wants bills posted online at least three days in advance, and he wants cameras in the Rules Committee room. He also insists he won’t be like past Republican speakers, vowing to be candid and straightforward in his dealings with the public and media.

“I am not Barack Obama and I am not Nancy Pelosi,” he said. “I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. And those of you who have dealt with me over the years know that that’s a fact and it will remain a fact.”

And like many Democrats and Republicans of late, Boehner bemoaned the state of Washington politics. The House, he said, is devoid of legislators and many are merely “members.”

“This is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world,” he said. “But there’s very little deliberation, there’s very little, very few legislators among the 435 members. And I really think that members are being short-changed. I came out of the Ohio Legislature, a place where it was a legislature and you were taught and you learned how to become a legislator. And I think that we need legislators in the U.S. Capitol.”