The Congressional Review Act that the Obama Administration Forgot about 1,800 Times

On July 29, Juliet Eilperin published an article in the Washington Post about the Obama administration's failure to comply with the Congressional Review Act (CRA). According to Eilperin’s article, Curtis Copeland, a retired Congressional Research Service staffer, discovered that from 2012 to 2014, there were approximately 1,800 rules and regulations unreported to Congress as required by the CRA. Copeland conducted a study of the more than 9,000 rules issued by Obama’s executive branch since the start of 2012. The 1996 CRA – which stemmed from the Republican Party’s “Contract with America” – requires most federal rules to be reported to the House and Senate in paper form and to the Government Accountability Office electronically at least 60 days before going into effect. In the alternative, new rules can be published in the Federal Register 60 days before effectiveness. Former Senator Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican and one of the law’s original sponsors, told the Washington Post the statute helps lawmakers hold hearings and use other tactics to influence regulations before they take effect. During Bill Clinton’s administration, Congress even overturned one of the President’s directives. But congressional action is extremely rare. And, since the start of 2012, the required reporting hasn’t been made for many of the regulations issued by the Obama administration, either because of bureaucratic oversight or because they were considered too minor to be reported. Failing to report many of the rules is a “technical violation” of the statute,“ and the law says they can’t take effect,” according to the Office of Management and Budget's Robert Cramer. But the law also says that failure to report is not judicially reviewable, which means that Congress can complain and cajole the President to make his executive departments report but Congress cannot take judicial action to force presidential compliance. ~~~~~ Dear readers, I raise this matter because of increasing calls for President Obama's impeachment. Rush Limbaugh used this lack of reporting 1,800 rules as another reason for impeaching Barack Obama. I understand what Rush Limbaugh and Eilperin are saying about the sloppy way in which the Obama White House and administration have interfaced with Congress. It has been a deplorable record of ignoring and baiting Congress, especially the Republican House, but it is very unlikely to provide grounds for impeachment, given the loose language in the CRA itself. In addition, impeachment is a political matter. It is the ultimate political matter under the Constitution, something being overlooked in the current situation.When, and if, a majority of the House - which is the political body that must begin tbe impeachment process by raising articles of impeachment - is ready to impeach the President, they will proceed. Before that time, everyone who thinks President Obama should be impeached can try to rally America behind the idea so that the majority of the House begins to see it as an important political agenda item because a majority of Americans want it to be done. However, the latest poll I have seen showed that 60% of Americans do not want Obama to be impeached. That is the key political fact. House Speaker John Boehner knows this and he is trying to preserve the great and growing likelihood of a GOP sweep in the November mid-term congressional elections by avoiding confrontation with that 60% of Americans. And, if or when the House may act on impeachment, it will certainly not be on the basis of this administrative-rule-noncompliance issue. There are much better reasons to impeach President Obama -- Obamacare presidential lawmaking, IRS political harassment and cover-up, and Benghazi. Leave the esoteric inside-the-Beltway fine print analysis to the Washington Post - it does it so well.