We don’t know what they feed those Republicans in Wisconsin.
But it seems to build backbone, judging from Ron Johnson’s willingness to depart from the bipartisan cronyism that too often defines Congress when its own interests are at stake.
Sen. Johnson starts from two quaint ideas: Congress should live by the same rules it sets for the rest of America, and presidents should obey the law.
With that in mind, Johnson has filed suit in federal court challenging a White House decision to allow Congress and its staff to receive taxpayer subsidies to help pay for their health plans under ObamaCare. This, the senator says, is in contrast to the clear intent and language of the ObamaCare law.
It’s true the requirement to purchase plans through ObamaCare imposes big burdens on staff — including staff of Republicans who opposed the law. But that was the purpose: If ObamaCare didn’t prove as wonderful as legislators claimed, everyone on Capitol Hill would feel the same pain as everyone else.
Johnson contends, rightly, that when Obama’s Office of Personnel Management ruled taxpayer subsidies to Congress and its staff could continue, it overstepped the law. He’s also right that this is not the first time the president has used executive fiat to substitute for law, even when the law happens to be his signature piece of legislation.
Suing the president isn’t our preferred route for reform. But the squawks this suit has elicited from both sides should remind us that what Congress really resents here is not Johnson’s resort to the courts but the idea of having to abide by its own laws.