Sen. Ron Johson (WI-tea party) sued the federal government because the federal government decided that congressional staff should have the benefit of health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act and that coverage should be subsidized to make it affordable. Johnson says that this is a terrible thing for him personally and so it should be ended. A federal judge
decided that was nonsense and tossed the case. And because the tea party millionaire Johnson doesn't have a lot else to occupy his time, he's appealing that dismissal.
The case was tossed because Chief Judge William C. Griesbach of the Eastern District of Wisconsin determined that Johnson had no standing.
“The question of the legality of the regulation has not been determined yet; although Plaintiffs believe the regulation is unlawful, such a belief cannot be enough to create standing because that would open the door to any uninjured party who had a generalized grievance with a government regulation,” the judge wrote. “Under such an approach, there would be no principled limit on standing because a plaintiff need only allege a belief that the challenged regulation is illegal.”
Nuh uh,
says Johnson, in his appeal. He was too hurt personally by the law.
Johnson's attorneys, however, argued the senator had suffered injury from the rule because the perceived "self-dealing" that led to the favorable subsidies might harm "his personal reputation and electoral prospect." […]
The appeal also argued Johnson suffered injury from the "time-consuming and substantial" administrative burden of the provision.
Oh, where to start? How about with Johnson's approval rating, that should be fun. Last October, a Marquette University Law School
pegged it at 28 percent. A more recent PPP poll from April is a
little more generous, showing Johnson still underwater with a 34 percent approval and 36 percent disapproval. Just a guess, but it's probably not the fact that his staff has health insurance that's driving that.
As for the administrative burden of providing that health coverage, if Sen. Johnson is taking on personal responsibility for being the human resources representative for his staff, he's doing it wrong. Johnson might indeed be facing some problems with his personal reputation and electoral prospects. While he undoubtedly blames all that on Obamacare—because if you're a tea partier, everything bad that happens is because of Obamacare—convincing another judge that it's true might prove difficult.