Republicans would like to put a stop to this.
Republicans, ever on the lookout for ways to express how very outraged they are at President Obama for daring to do something about immigration reform after they refused, hit upon the idea of not inviting the president to deliver the State of the Union address to Congress. The idea seemed crazy when it was first mentioned—probably because it's crazy—but it seems to be
gaining steam:
Late Tuesday, Rep. Paul C. Broun (R-Ga.) called for Boehner to not invite Obama to deliver the State of the Union address next year. [...]
On the State of the Union, [Rep. Tim Huelskamp] added: “In the spirit of George Washington, he could send it to us in writing. It’d save some time.”
Steve Benen points to some other Republicans
pushing the idea, including Heritage Action's communications director saying "we'll hear a lot" about the idea. Coming from Heritage Action, that probably translates into an indirect order to congressional extremists: Hey, guys, make sure we hear a lot about this, mmkay?
Benen notes the history of the State of the Union: It's true that presidents used to deliver written reports, but traditions change and by now the in-person address to Congress is firmly ensconced. Not only that, but:
In 1999, a Republican Congress welcomed President Clinton to deliver a SOTU even after he’d literally been impeached, despite the fact that the GOP-led Senate was still weighing whether to remove the sitting president from office.
It's unlikely that GOP leaders won't see how bad it would look to refuse to invite the first black president on account of how he was too nice to brown people, but let's be clear that that would be exactly what quite a few influential Republicans do want to see. Can they force Speaker John Boehner to publicly flirt with the idea?
