Raskin: Biden has a ‘constitutional command’ on debt
Biden said he would look at the issue of invalidating the debt ceiling through the 14th Amendment “months down the road.”
One of Capitol Hill’s highest-profile constitutional lawyers says President Joe Biden has a “clear constitutional command” to go around Congress if he must in order to avoid a default on the nation’s debt obligations.
“I think the main thing is that the president do everything in his power to try to dislodge the political stalemate,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Tuesday. “But if not, there is a pretty clear constitutional command there.”
Biden has spent months locked in a stalemate with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over raising the nation’s debt limit, a fight that has grown more urgent amid recent projections that the federal government could default on its $31.4 trillion debt as soon as June 1. And after a meeting Tuesday with congressional leaders did nothing to move the parties towards a compromise, Biden told reporters he was “considering” invoking the 14th Amendment, which states that the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned,” as a means to circumvent the debt ceiling standoff House Republicans.
But even in floating such a move, the president also cast doubt on it, telling reporters that it would “have to be litigated and in the meantime without an extension it’d still end up in the same place.” Biden said he would look at the issue of invalidating the debt ceiling through the 14th Amendment “months down the road.”
Raskin, an emeritus constitutional law professor at American University, said Biden’s hand could ultimately be forced if talked with Republicans stay stalled. But the lawmaker added a caveat that whether a move to invoke the 14th Amendment passes constitutional muster would depend on exactly what Biden does to address debt.
“We have virtually no precedent under the validity of the public debt provision,” Raskin said. “But look, the MAGA Republicans are putting McCarthy in a position, who is now putting Biden in a position where he’s going to be forced to choose between either violating the Constitution and violating the laws of the country which require him to pay the bondholders and pay the Social Security recipients, or he’s going to have to violate the debt limit statute.”