There goes another Republican, letting the cat out of the bag about Republicans relying on the Supreme Court to do their dirty work for them and botching up the narrative that Republicans can fix Obamacare. The latest is Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Mitch McConnell's second in command, who
tells reporters at
Roll Call he believes Obamacare is doomed.
"What I expect is that the Supreme Court is going to render a body blow to Obamacare from which I don't think it will ever recover," Cornyn said.
Because of that, Cornyn doesn't see any hurry for the Senate in having an Obamacare repeal vote. In fact, he says that Republicans should hold off on that until they prove that they can govern.
"I think it's important that we demonstrate that we can be productive before we have the inevitable fight over repealing Obamacare," the Texas Republican said in an interview with CQ Roll Call Wednesday. "We are going to have that vote. But my own preference would be we have it after we've been able to demonstrate that we can actually get some things done."
Good luck, there. By these very statements, Cornyn is betraying that the GOP is as dysfunctional as ever on Obamacare. Leadership is
supposed to be finding a replacement plan that both House and Senate rank-and-file can coalesce around. That's supposed to convince the justices—and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts—that they aren't going to create a disaster if they take subsidies away from millions of people buying insurance on the federal health insurance exchange.
So here's Cornyn blowing that one up. But at least he's being honest about the fact that the Republicans are now relying fully on the conservative, activist Supreme Court to do their dirty work for them.