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Justice

How Santorum & Romney’s Fake First Amendment Endangers All Protections For Workers

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 9, 2012 at 3:10 pm

As ThinkProgress previously reported, GOP presidential frontrunners Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, along with Speaker John Boehner, all incorrectly believe that the First Amendment permits the Catholic Church to immunize itself from a law simply because they have a religious disagreement with it.

This isn’t just wrong and contrary to Supreme Court precedent, it is disastrously wrong. In this case, Santorum, Romney and Boehner all believe that conservative Catholic bishops should be able immunize themselves from a contraception regulation, but the truth is that there is no limit on these three men’s misreading of the Constitution. Indeed, as superlawyer David Boies explained on MSNBC last night, if one employer can immunize themselves from one law simply by claiming that it violates their religion, then any employer can use this tactic to immunize themselves from any law. Boies cites the minimum wage, safe working conditions, workman’s compensation, age discrimination laws & taxes as examples of laws that employers could ignore simply by claiming they object to them. Watch it:

Santorum, Romney and their co-ideologues like to claim they are defending “religious liberty,” but the truth is that they are really fighting against the rule of law. It cannot be the case that employers can treat their workers however they choose simply because they object to the law requiring them to behave otherwise.

NEWS FLASH

CBO: Boehner’s Mass Transit Funding Plan Would Cover Just 5 Percent of Transit Costs | Congress is currently working to re-authorize a big transportation funding bill, but Republicans have imperiled the process by proposing to stop using revenue from the fuel tax to pay for mass transit, instead restricting it to just highway spending. As an alternative, the GOP wants to make a one-time $40 billion allotment for mass transit. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has proposed expanded oil drilling in areas currently off limits to the practice, including areas in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Virginia, and part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in order to raise the $40 billion. But today, the Congressional Budget Office found that Boehner’s proposal would raise just 5 percent of the funds needed to pay for the mass transit bill — $2.06 billion through 2016. Of course, this leaves aside the environmental damage that could occur from increased drilling.

Health

With War On Contraception, GOP Lawmakers Seek To Deny Coverage To Others That They Enjoy

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 8, 2012 at 1:34 pm

Republican congressional leaders are entering the fray over the Obama administration’s weeks-old decision to require employer-provided health insurance to cover contraception, including for some religious organizations that don’t employ a majority of people of that faith. The decision has been a hot topic on the campaign trail in recent days, but today, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took the House floor to slam it, calling it an “unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country” and vowed to repeal the regulation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had a similarly sharp indictment yesterday. Watch it:

But missed in this debate is the fact Boehner and McConnell’s own health insurance plans covers contraception, something they now want to deny to others.

Since 1998, every insurer participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) — including members of Congress — has had access to comprehensive contraceptive coverage, including emergency contraception, such as the morning after pill. Republican lawmakers now want to prevent access to the coverage they enjoy to employees of religious organizations who may not be of that religion or who disagree with anti-contraception doctrine (89 percent of Catholics say contraception decision should be theirs, not the church’s).

Politics

Indoor Tanning Industry Backs Boehner

By Josh Israel on Feb 7, 2012 at 9:30 am

The Indoor Tanning Industry’s political action committee has contributed $5,000 House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) campaign account and another $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Campaign’s Boehner for Speaker Committee.

The trade association “actively lobbies against legislation that would place unfair restrictions on salon businesses.” Boehner no doubt earned the group’s gratitude with his staunch opposition to inclusion of tanning salon taxes in the Affordable Care Act.

Ironically, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who famously tweeted to Jersey Shore star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi that he would not tax her tanning bed received no contributions from the PAC this cycle or last. (HT: @lukerosiak)

Climate Progress

Boehner’s Last Stand: House Leader Wants to Kill Transit Funding

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 3, 2012 at 11:10 am

by Greg Hanscom, reposted from Grist

It was apparently not enough to obliterate funding for bike lanes and walking paths and kids trying to get to school. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to keep our tax dollars from paying for public transit as well.

Earlier this week, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) unveiled a draft transportation bill that would cut all designated funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure, the Safe Routes to School program, and grants that have encouraged “complete streets” projects. Still, it looked like the more egregious provisions would be stripped away as the legislation — titled “The American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act” — ran through the lawmaking process. And at least the bill maintained the country’s longstanding, if weak, commitment to public transportation.

Then, Wednesday night, Boehner and the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee proposed killing a longstanding rule that sets aside a portion of the gas tax to fund trains and buses and other public transportation systems.

“We were all expecting some weird stuff,” says David Goldberg with the nonprofit Transportation for America, which has raised the alarm over the latest move. “But we weren’t expecting this now.”

In his attempt to reverse a longstanding commitment to transit (the “mass transit account” was created in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan), Boehner may have gone too far. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials — that is, the people who build this country’s roads — has come out against the move, and there are rumors that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may oppose it.

What could Boehner possibly be thinking?

Read more

Justice

Boehner Touts Yet Another Ridiculous Constitutional Objection To The Affordable Care Act

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 2, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Last month, the Obama Administration approved important regulations under the Affordable Care Act requiring health plans to cover contraceptive services. Never one to miss an opportunity to falsely claim something related the the ACA violates the Constitution, Speaker John Boehner (R) said today that these regulations are unconstitutional:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that the mandate that health insurance plans provide contraceptives at no charge “violates our Constitution,” because it forces Catholics to violate their consciences.

“I think this mandate violates our Constitution,” Boehner said during his weekly news conference Thursday.

Boehner said that there was “a lot of opposition” to the new regulations enacted by the Department of Health and Human Services, because it forces Catholics to provide access to contraceptives despite the fact that the Catholic Church holds that contraception is immoral.

It’s important to note that the regulation exempts churches that provide health insurance to their employees and nothing in the regulations require health providers with religious objections to proscribe contraception. Additionally, it’s not exactly true that “Catholics” believe what Boehner claims they believe. Although the conservative United States Conference of Catholic Bishops does indeed object to these regulations, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use contraception.

Boehner’s constitutional analysis, moreover, is completely absurd. There is nothing in the Constitution saying that a person does not have to comply with the law simply because they object to it — if this were actually true, anyone could immunize themselves from paying taxes simply by claiming a moral objection to doing so. Nor does the Constitution allow people to violate the law simply because they have a religious objection to it.

The seminal Supreme Court opinion establishing this point was written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia — who, coincidentally, is Catholic. Scalia explains that “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” In other words, so long as a law does not single out Catholics (or any other faith) for inferior treatment, the law applies universally to everyone.

Ultimately, however, it is not surprising that Boehner is once again mouthing off about the Constitution without understanding what it actually says. The Speaker, of course, is a proud supporter of the lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that a leading conservative judge that the case against the ACA has no basis “in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.”

NEWS FLASH

Boehner Will Meet With Cancer-Stricken Lesbian Servicemember | Charlie Morgan, a lesbian National Guardsman fighting Stage IV breast cancer, has been asking to meet with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), but his office refused to respond until the Huffington Post reached out for comment. Morgan hopes to convince Boehner to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court so that her stay-at-home wife, Karen, will not be denied survivor benefits if she dies. Karen is also not currently eligible for health care or other privileges through Charlie, even though their four-year-old daughter, Casey Elena, is. Read Charlie’s letter to Boehner here.

Health

Boehner Promises To Revisit Medicare Privatization In This Year’s Budget

By Igor Volsky on Jan 23, 2012 at 8:30 am

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, House Speaker John Beohner (R-OH) confirmed that Republicans won’t be backing away from plans to privatize the Medicare program this year — despite voters’ rejection of the plan — and will attempt to “pursue a bipartisan Medicare proposal in order to deflect Democratic attacks”:

WALLACE: Will the House pass a budget this year, and will it have serious entitlement reform in it again such as last year’s proposal by Paul Ryan for premium supports (ph) as a way to change and reform Medicare?

BOEHNER: Well, that was one option on how we could save Medicare. There are other ideas. Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden, the Democrat senator from Oregon, came up with a bipartisan proposal. The idea here is that we’ve got to make changes to Medicare. Otherwise, it will not be there for seniors who count on it. So we will do a serious budget. But also, remember this: on Tuesday, it will be 1,000 days since the United States Senate passed a budget. One thousand days, and they have yet to pass a budget. How do you deal with the long-term fiscal problems that we have if you refuse to come to an agreement on a budget?

WALLACE: So I want to make it clear, because there had been some thought that maybe because of the hits that you guys took last year, you weren’t going to pass a budget. You are going to pass a budget again this year?

BOEHNER: Of course we are.

Watch it:

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) echoed Boehner’s sentiment at the House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday, telling Reporters, “We’re not backing off on the kinds of reforms that we’ve advocated, but we have to write it.” “We’ve done more to normalize the idea of premium support than anything at all. We’re confident that these are the right policies. There’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that’s occurring on doing premium support reform to Medicare is the best way to save Medicare.”

Only one Democrat in the Senate, Ron Wyden (D-OR), has publicly embraced a watered down version of Ryan’s premium support proposal, but the plan — which would preserve traditional Medicare as an option for seniors and offer premium support credits that would do a better job of keeping up with health care costs — was rejected by Congressional Democrats and the White House. They argued that no version of premium support can achieve real savings without adverse consequences for beneficiaries, noting that the proposal could significantly shift costs to beneficiaries and fail to fully prevent private health insurance plans from attracting healthier beneficiaries and driving up premiums for those who remain in traditional Medicare.

In fact, there is very little evidence to suggest that private plans have or can do a better job of lowering spending. Medicare’s sheer size and bargaining clout have contributed to its greater success in controlling health care costs and the program has introduced market innovations and payment reforms that were later adopted by private industry. The Affordable Care Act will build on this structure by investing in new demonstration projects and payment reforms that will reward providers for delivering care more efficiently and — ultimately — lower the rate of growth in health care spending.

Economy

House To Pass Payroll Tax Cut Extension Today (Update)

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Dec 23, 2011 at 9:45 am

The House is expected to pass the two-month payroll tax cut extension today, preventing taxes from increasing for millions of Americans on Jan. 1. The Senate approved the deal Friday morning. House Speaker John Boehner caved under the enormous pressure and dropped his opposition to the extension, telling reporters late Thursday that the House had reached a deal to pass the Senate’s two-month extension deal after minor modifications, according to the Washington Post:

The agreement resolved the last stalemate in a year of bitter congressional fighting that earned lawmakers their lowest approval ratings in recent memory.

In exchange for supporting the 60-day patch, Republicans secured minor face-saving concessions from Senate leaders, who had already passed a two-month deal on an overwhelming vote of 89 to 10. Senate leaders had balked at the House’s demand to restart talks over the holidays on a full-year extension of the tax cut.

The Senate agreed to make a technical change to the payroll tax reporting requirements, designed to lessen the burden on small businesses of implementing the two-month deal.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) promised he would appoint a conference committee to take up negotiations after New Year’s Day on ways to pay for a full-year tax cut.

Both chambers will pass the plan by unanimous consent so long as no member shows up to voice opposition in person, which lets the deal pass even though most members have gone home. There was no opposition to the deal in the Senate Friday morning. The two-month extension gives House and Senate leaders time to negotiate for a yearlong extension after the holiday recess. “I am grateful that the voices of reason have prevailed,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement.

But so far, a few House freshmen have threatened to stop the deal. Freshman Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said he was “not yet sure” if he would protest the deal, and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) told CNN’s John King Thursday night, “I’m not so sure I’m not going to do that,” when asked if he’d drive to Washington, D.C. to stop the deal.

Boehner acknowledged the pressure he has felt, telling reporters Thursday that “I talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who say we don’t like the two-month extension and if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people even if it’s not exactly what we want.”

Boehner received pressure from his own party — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on the House to pass the two month extension yesterday — as well as the public. After the White House asked people to say what $40 — the average amount an American worker would lose per paycheck without the extension — would mean to them, thousands of people responded on Twitter using the #40dollars hashtag.

Update

The House passed the extension deal by unanimous consent.

Update

After the House passed the deal, Reid named his conferees: Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (MT), Ben Cardin (MD), Jack Reed (RI) and Bob Casey (PA). House Democrats named their conferees before the House adjourned: Reps. Sandy Levin (MI), Xavier Becerra (CA), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Allyson Schwartz (PA), and Henry Waxman (CA).

Economy

BREAKING: McConnell Calls On House To Pass Two-Month Extension Of Payroll Tax Holiday

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Dec 22, 2011 at 11:48 am

Minutes after House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) delivered a press conference vowing to stand firm on the payroll tax holiday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) delivered a major blow to Boehner’s position, calling on the lower chamber to pass the Senate’s two-month extension, something which Boehner has refused to do. “The House should pass an extension that locks in the thousands of Keystone XL pipeline jobs, prevents any disruption in the payroll tax holiday or other expiring provisions, and allows Congress to work on a solution for the longer extensions,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell’s statement further isolates Boehner, who has found little support from fellow Republicans in his position, and gives President Obama new ammunition with which to attack Boehner in an upcoming speech today.

Boehner initially appeared to support the Senate’s bill, but quickly backtracked in an “apparent breakdown between Boehner and McConnell.” McConnell had remained silent on the payroll tax dispute since the Senate passed its version with overwhelming bipartisan support last week, likely could have avoided delivering a rare intra-party rebuke longer.

But Boehner’s intransigence, which risks raising taxes on 160 million Americans next year, is increasingly hurting the GOP, according to many leaders in the party, and perhaps McConnell felt he had to speak up before more damage was done. As The Hill reports today:

Senate Republicans are worried the standoff over extending the payroll tax holiday could hurt their chances of winning the upper chamber next year.

Senior Republican aides have made clear in private conversations that their bosses are not happy with how House Republicans have handled a bipartisan Senate compromise to extend tax relief for two months.

“It’s not helping,” a veteran Senate Republican strategist said of the House GOP fight against the Senate package. “Senate Republicans are tired of paying the price for the lack of legislative thoughtfulness in the House.”

Indeed, House Republicans have drawn the public ire of Karl Rove, the Wall Street Journal, conservative pundits, and five Senate Republicans, while they’ve found little support among the GOP 2012 presidential candidates. It’s still unclear what the endgame for the payroll tax issue will be, but it’s looking increasingly like it won’t be one in which Boehner comes out winning.

Update

A spokesman for Boehner said McConnell’s statement changes nothing. “The House and Senate have two different bills, but the same goal. That is why we believe, as Senator McConnell suggested, the two chambers should work to reconcile the two bills so that we can provide a full year of payroll tax relief — and do it before year’s end,” he said.

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