Author: A.B. Stoddard

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Killing the ACA?

For Republicans, it sure was fun while their hopes lasted, but many have concluded the Supreme Court might not be able to kill off the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after all.

When the high court rules this spring in King v. Burwell, even a decision that would invalidate subsidies to cover health insurance in 37 states where the federal government operates exchanges may not necessarily spell doom for those subsidies or the system at all. 

Republicans are already anticipating President Obama’s response would be an executive order directing federal marketplaces to immediately belong to those states or a bill asking Congress to do the same, or at least to extend the subsidies in some form. 

Somewhere between 5 million and 7 million people, many from Republican states that refused to start exchanges, will be at risk of price hikes that could eventually torpedo the entire law. The GOP is scrambling for an appropriate response as a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows, in the case of a ruling against the law, that 64 percent of Americans want Congress to extend subsidies in affected states — including 40 percent of Republican respondents.

Over time, ObamaCare has morphed into a zombie Republicans cannot extinguish. 

First, there were the angry town halls in August of 2009, but then the bill passed in March of 2010. 

There was a historic, nationwide victory for Republicans in the midterm elections of 2010, resulting largely from antipathy toward ObamaCare. 

Then, to conservatives’ horror, in June 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the taxes in the ACA were constitutional, with the deciding vote of Chief Justice John Roberts. 

Then, when there was hope of electing a GOP president to repeal the law, the party nominated someone who had created the very model for the law in Massachusetts and wouldn’t denounce it, and Obama was reelected in 2012. 

Now, Republicans have expanded their majority in the House, taken control of the Senate for the first time in eight years, and the law faces a high court review that could obliterate its very structure. The Affordable Care Act’s approval, at 40-46 positive/negative, stinks. Yet the law, no matter the ruling in June, not only could survive, but it could subsequently be improved.

Conservatives on the far right, not surprisingly, are hoping for the insurance price death spiral should the court declare subsidies in federal exchanges illegal. Other Republicans say it would not be the responsibility of the Congress to provide any response, while still others say that preparing a thoughtful response that prevents chaos could actually smooth the way for a majority of the nine justices to rule against the subsidies.

Some Republicans describe it as the last chance for the undoing of the ACA. In order to force it into the 2016 presidential debate, one option would be the extension of subsidies that would sunset in late 2017, in order for a new president and a new Congress to fix it again or repeal it. For an extension, Republicans would want concessions like reinstating the 40-hour work week and eliminating both the employer and individual mandates.

But cajoling 13 Democrats in the Senate to override a veto seems far from likely. So does refusing to extend subsidies, because millions of those possibly affected are from red states Republicans represent or blue ones they want to keep or win. The 56th vote in the House to repeal the ACA saw three new GOP defections, from Republicans in swing districts. States potentially affected by the King v. Burwell decision include 2016 battlegrounds like Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There are Republican senators running for reelection two years from now in all five.

Five years after passage, ObamaCare is a paradox. It’s deeply unpopular — but just not enough to destroy it.

(Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and board chair at Latino Memphis, Inc.; Michael J. LaRosa is an associate professor of history at Rhodes College.)

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Republicans at the Crossroads

When it comes to the Republican Party’s immigration divide, the more things stay the same, the more they stay the same. 

The 2016 campaign has begun, and Jeb Bush, a pro-immigration-reform candidate, is believed to have raised the most money. Yet Republicans in Congress are under pressure to roll back the president’s executive action that conservatives consider amnesty. Republicans don’t have the votes to do it. The issue promises to dog the GOP from now at least until Election Day.

A few weeks back, House Republicans passed a bill that would defund parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to block President Obama’s executive order shielding up to 5 million people from deportation. The bill would restore funds that expire in February to the rest of the department. Though the bill can’t pass the Senate, with all Senate Democrats united against it, GOP leaders there promise to bring it up anyway. 

And “Plan B,” they say, doesn’t yet exist. Failure to pass a bill before February 27th will allow Democrats and the president to claim Republicans risked funding vital national security functions in a time of rising terror threats, concerns that register high in polls of voter priorities. 

Some Republicans argue a lapse in DHS funding would make little difference, because most of the department’s employees are considered essential and would remain on the job with their pay delayed. But creating an avoidable cliff, especially for GOP leaders who have promised an end to them, is foolish in light of the unavoidable cliffs that are up next on the calendar.

Conservatives are likely to fight their leaders and push for more confrontation over the debt ceiling in March, the Medicare “doc fix” in April, and the Highway Trust Fund in May — all must-pass bills that conservatives will view as opportunities to gain leverage over Obama.

Meanwhile, to soothe conservatives, the House prepped a border security bill that would effectively eliminate hope for comprehensive reform, requiring the DHS to secure the border completely — blocking 100 percent of entries — in five years. But conservatives dismissed it for failing to include interior enforcement measures for immigrants already here illegally. The bill was pulled.

The latest concession was Speaker John Boehner’s recent announcement that the House would sue the president over his executive action. It’s hard to see that token move assuaging angry conservatives.

Some momentary reflection and reconsideration of immigration followed GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s defeat in 2012 — a devastating 71 percent to 21 percent wipeout among Latino voters — but faded rapidly, and two years later, the party is more divided than it was then. The “autopsy” by the Republican National Committee suggested passing reform and stated, “It doesn’t matter what we say about education, jobs, or the economy; if Hispanics think that we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.” The warning went nowhere.

But immigration reform remains a goal for those who influence and fund presidential campaigns. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel, recently gushed at remarks by Bush on the benefits of immigration reform. Murdoch, and influential casino magnate and GOP funder Sheldon Adelson, both took the remarkable step of urging the party to pass reform in high-profile op-eds published within one day of each other, after freshman Rep. Dave Brat (R-Virginia) used the immigration issue to topple former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a June primary election.

Republicans won’t be passing any immigration reform, but it will remain the subject of contentious debate for the next two years, from the halls of Congress to the campaign trail — much to the delight of Democrats.

A.B. Stoddard writes for The Hill, where a version of this column first appeared.

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In Christie’s Footsteps

Getting reelected with 60 percent of the vote in a blue state wasn’t going to get New Jersey governor Chris Christie any thanks or praise from fellow Republicans, and he knew it. So the morning after, he gave them the “Jersey treatment,” rubbing it in their faces.

After winning 51 percent of the Latino vote, Christie held court with the national press, boasting he had built the relationships and the trust in Latino communities that Republicans have been unable to build as a national party. He asked rhetorically, “Now find another Republican in America who’s won the Latino vote recently.” Then said, “When you come just six months before an election, people are going to be like, ‘Where have you been? And why should I trust you? This other guy over here he’s been here for years.'”

It didn’t take months, or even weeks, after his expected reelection for things to get prickly with Christie, now an official 2016 contender. He is speaking so much like a future candidate his potential rivals wouldn’t give even one day of honeymoon. When asked directly by NBC’s Chuck Todd whether Christie was conservative enough to win the GOP nomination, GOP governor Rick Perry of Texas not only refused to answer the question, he wouldn’t even say Christie’s name.

It was the same with other Republican presidential wannabes, who belittled or dismissed Christie’s smashing victory among women, minorities, and Democrats. Kentucky senator Rand Paul called Christie a “moderate,” while Florida senator Marco Rubio told CNN that all elections are different and that “some of these races don’t apply to future races.” Though Rubio offered his congratulations to Christie, he said the governor had spoken “to the hopes and aspirations of people within New Jersey.” Key word: “within.” Texas senator Ted Cruz said he appreciated that Christie is “brash, that he is outspoken and that he won his race,” but when asked whether Christie is truly conservative, Cruz walked off without answering.

Christie confidants are already telling the press the governor is seriously prepping to be a candidate for the GOP nomination and that Republican donors across the country are begging him to run — again. For many establishment Republicans, or those not aligned with the Tea Party, Christie represents the only hope of winning the White House, because they see him as the only candidate who could defeat Hillary Clinton. He can — unless someone like former Florida governor Jeb Bush enters the race — expect to run on his electability and appeal among general election voters as a problem solver with a record, while other more conservative candidates paint the governing wing of the party as sellouts.

As candidates begin quietly jostling for support among consultants, elected officials, donors, and interest groups, it appears Christie could soon take up valuable space Rubio had once hoped to occupy on the left of Tea Party candidates like Cruz and Paul. After all, he made a high-risk choice to take a beating from conservatives for leading on immigration reform, which he has since retreated from. To move back to the right, Rubio backed the failed “defund” movement Cruz led, which resulted in an unpopular government shutdown that tainted the GOP as a whole but didn’t defund Obamacare. Rubio wants to be seen as a fresh new leader, but, now stained by the gridlock in Washington, he will find Christie arguing that no leadership is emerging from the nation’s capital, while governors like himself are bringing solutions and changes to the country for the better.

Rubio said the key message from last week’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli lost his gubernatorial bid, was that it’s necessary “to abandon the politics of big government and embrace free enterprise and limited government.” Rubio said Cuccinelli had made that argument in Virginia while Christie had “tried to make it” in New Jersey, and he declared that on a national level “that’s a winning argument no matter who our nominee is in 2016 and certainly for our candidates running in 2014.”

Should he run, Christie will certainly make that argument. To potential candidates like Rubio, it’s the other arguments he makes that will be the problem.

A.B. Stoddard is a columnist and editor at The Hill newspaper.