GOP turns to courts to rein in Obama’s executive power

Sen. John McCain reacted to President Obama’s vow to use his pen — minus Congress — to propel significant personal legislative and policy agenda items with a blunt warning: We’ll sue.

“We can go to court,” the Arizona Republican said, according to the Hill. “We haven’t got many more options except tell the American people that we’re seeing an abuse of the intent of the Constitution.”

House Speaker John Boehner likewise promised that his fellow Republicans wouldn’t stand quietly as Mr. Obama sidesteps the Constitution and Congress with executive orders.

“We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans,” Mr. Boehner told reporters, specifically referencing Mr. Obama’s looming executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal workers.

Meanwhile, a slew of other legal challenges to White House wish list policies have been launched by unhappy Republicans. One deals with the implementation of Obamacare, seen by some as a piecemeal approach that picks and chooses which political favorites get exempted, and by others as a trouncing of religious rights in favor of birth control.

Another deals with the National Security Agency’s surveillance program and the myriad ways in which the federal agency has seemed to bypass or outright ignore the Fourth Amendment.

Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday at the State of the Net conference that he plans to soon file a class action lawsuit against the NSA, and calling on “people on the Internet to go out and really support our lawsuit,” the Hill reported.

Among those in the GOP who have tacked on to lawsuits over Obamacare: Sen. Roy Blunt and Rep. Randy Forbes filed amicus briefs in a case against the Department of Health and Human Services, alleging a violation of religious freedoms over the contraception mandate. Eighty-eight other lawmakers have signed on to the brief.