President Joe Biden’s administration has been accused of reckless spending in the past few years, and the money isn’t even going toward America’s biggest issues.
Critics maintain that while the border crisis rages, the fentanyl epidemic explodes, and energy prices remain high, Biden just keeps spending. And last year’s $1.7T spending bill is an example of that recklessness.
Now, Texas is punching back — and they’re claiming in a new lawsuit that Biden actually passed that bill illegally.
The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill was signed into law in December, though many Republican lawmakers and pundits had big problems with the package.
They pointed out that once again, far too much taxpayer money was flooding to liberal pet projects, and not enough was going to actually help a struggling country.
That isn’t the focal point of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal move, though: he’s alleging that the government shouldn’t have been able to pass it in the first place.
From Fox News:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and his administration for allegedly breaking the Constitution in order to swiftly pass a trillion dollar spending package.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, claims that Biden unlawfully signed the Democrats’ $1.7 trillion omnibus package into law in December because it was not legally passed in the House.
The basis of the suit is simple: Paxton points out that only 201 members were present when the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 was voted on by the House.
That means half the members were absent and as such, Paxton claims the required quorum was not met. This is a direct violation of the Constitution, the AG alleges:
Nowhere does the U.S. Constitution authorize the House to pass trillion-dollar bills when more than half the members are in their homes, vacationing, or are anywhere physically other than the United States Capitol Building.
Paxton added in the press release that “our founders would be turning over in their graves if they could see how former Speaker Nancy Pelosi used proxy voting to upend our constitutional system.”
The official release says that because the spending bill wasn’t passed when the necessary House quorum was present, “it was never lawfully enacted” and it’s “unconstitutional.”
On top of that, the lawsuit says Biden couldn’t legally sign the bill, either. And that’s why it shouldn’t be enforced as law right now.
Back in 2020, Pelosi approved proxy voting to get around the pandemic. But even with the pandemic over, proxy voting remained in place and let House members vote without being present on the floor.
New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally ended that practice last month — but not before Democrats were able to use it to rush that spending package through.
This could throw a serious wrench into the works in the courts, and might hold up Biden’s “pet project” of 2022.
Key Takeaways:
- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Biden administration for “illegally” passing the $1.7T omnibus spending bill.
- The suit says the House didn’t have the necessary quorum to pass it, so it was illegal for Joe Biden to sign into law.
- Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi used proxy voting to get the votes needed.
Source: Fox News
