Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to be very clear about something. There are no exemptions built into the mandate because the mandate doesn't yet exist. As far as I can tell, this may be a feature and not a bug, you see, because he gave a speech--he gave a speech--talking about the fact that he was going to issue the mandate. He didn't release any legally operative documents, didn't even disclose his precise source of authority to do this--authority which I highly doubt even exists. So there is no document to challenge. No one can sue to challenge the document because the document doesn't exist. But businesses everywhere fear and, indeed, know that it is coming, and so their general counsel's offices, their human resources departments for employers with more than 99 employees in this country are scrambling to get ahead of it. Many are even adopting and some, I am told, are moving forward with enforcing or preparing to enforce those same policies. So what will happen is that those employees who have these sincerely held objections will be without recourse. Now, my friend and colleague from Washington makes the point that these exemptions are already there. That is a legal and factual impossibility because the mandate does not yet exist.…”