Issue #314

House lawsuit doesn’t stop Obama executive orders

The House’s vote to sue President Barack Obama for allegedly abusing his executive authority won’t dissuade him from keeping up his executive action drive, administration officials said Thursday as they discussed the latest step in the president’s “pen and phone” campaign to evade congressional gridlock. Obama’s latest move is an executive order he planned to sign Thursday, making it harder for companies with a record of labor law violations to land federal contracts. But aides made clear the step is also intended to send a message to the Republican House that the president isn’t backing down in the face of the litigation threat. The order requires companies bidding on federal contracts valued at more than $500,000 to disclose a three-year history of labor-law violations. Firms with a history of serious violations could lose contracts to other companies with better track records. A Government Accountability Office report issued in 2010 found that many of the companies incurring the largest fines for wage-and-hour or workplace-safety violations went on to win new federal contracts. Politico, 7-31-14.