A Boston federal judge has postponed a hearing regarding a lawsuit filed by a government workers’ union in an attempt to bolster President Joe Biden’s authority to invoke the 14th Amendment to override the debt ceiling, Politico reported.
“In deference to the efforts of the executive and legislative branches to resolve the current impasse over the debt ceiling statute, the court will postpone the hearing on [the union’s] motion for a preliminary injunction scheduled for this Wednesday, May 31, 2023, pending any further order of the court,” U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns wrote.
According to Politico, the suit comes after a filing by the Justice Department that sought to clarify whether the 14th Amendment authorizes or "even requires the president to keep paying U.S. government financial obligations in the face of a statute that seeks to set a limit on the total debt outstanding."
Biden has signaled that he may invoke the power of the 14th Amendment in the future but is worried that a court battle would be economically damaging.
“Because the X-date is now estimated to be June 5, and because Congress may pass legislation this week raising the Debt Limit, Defendants submit that proceeding on the current schedule would be unnecessarily burdensome and would waste both the parties’ and the Court’s resources,” Special Counsel Brad Rosenberg and other lawyers from Justice’s Civil Division wrote. “Indeed, the relief that Plaintiff seeks may be counterproductive in light of the agreement in principle that has been reached.”
Read the full report over at Politico.
