At The New Republic’s blog, Jonathan Cohn grumbles about the insolence of ObamaCare opponents:

Across the country, Republican state officials vilify the law…In Washington, Republican members of Congress are trying to undermine the law by denying funding for outreach and implementation. According to a report by Elise Viebeck  in The Hill, a few Republicans have suggested they won’t help constituents having trouble enrolling in the new insurance options. And, as Anne Kim and Ed Kilgore from the Washington Monthly recently reported, they’re even refusing to work with churches on crafting a bipartisan fix to what looks like a predictable, if inevitable, glitch in the law’s drafting.

Nobody expects Republicans to praise Obamacare or to give up efforts at repeal, assuming they feel strongly about it. But, as long as Obamacare remains on the books, don’t even its critics have some obligation to enforce the law in good faith? Shouldn’t they be helping constituents without insurance to take advantage of the law’s new options?

Let’s first examine the absurdity of Cohn complaining that “Republican members of Congress are trying to undermine the law by denying funding for outreach and implementation.” Wait, you mean ObamaCare didn’t include enough funding for its own implementation? How does the fault for that lie with congressional Republicans (who opposed this law), rather than congressional Democrats (who enacted it with inadequate funding)? Doesn’t the need for additional funding mean ObamaCare will cost more than supporters claimed when they enacted it? And wasn’t that an accusation they denied? Shouldn’t Cohn be criticizing Democrats for that, too? Does Cohn really mean to say that legislators have a duty to vote to fund a law they want to repeal? Does he also believe legislators have a duty to fund “outreach and implementation” for anti-sodomy laws? What about voter-ID laws? Marijuana prohibition is horribly under-funded; think of all the users who don’t go to jail. Do legislators have a duty to ensure those laws are fully funded and implemented? Do they have a duty to fix any glitches in those laws?

As for Cohn’s question, “as long as Obamacare remains on the books, don’t even its critics have some obligation to enforce the law in good faith?” Any middle-school civics student could tell him the answer is “no.” In our system of government, the executive branch enforces the law, not the legislature, and not the citizenry. So with respect to the federal government, that means there are exactly zero ObamaCare opponents who have a duty to enforce this law. The Supreme Court has clarified that nobody at the state level has a duty to enforce it, either. Given that many opponents (including me) believe ObamaCare to be an unjust law, we could go farther and say critics have a moral duty to resist or disobey it. Finally, it’s hard to take Cohn seriously when Jonathan Adler and I are trying to get the Obama administration to enforce the law in good faith, yet Cohn is trying to stop us.

When Politico gave its usual run-down of the morning’s hot topics in health care on Wednesday, one extra special blurb caught my colleague Michael Cannon’s eye. Apparently a Dutch knight is working at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a key federal agency in the Department of Health and Human Services.

On April 29, Sir Jay Merchant was knighted by Ambassador Rudolf Bekink on behalf of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Merchant is the “international relations adviser” in the Office of the Administrator of CMS, which is the agency’s highest executive office.

While this may seem like just a neat factoid for inside-the-Beltway water-cooler amusement, there’s actually a constitutional problem that precludes this gallant story from having a fairytale ending. Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 (the “Emoluments” or “Titles of Nobility” Clause) states:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 

In other words, it’s illegal for someone holding a federal “office of profit or trust” to accept a knighthood or other noble title. And this isn’t some archaic provision that hasn’t been dusted off since knights wore suits of armor. Believe it or not–and nothing is unbelievable when it comes to Obamacare implementation–this isn’t the first time this issue has arisen. It’s not even the first time in the last decade!  

In 2007, for example, the FBI asked the Department of Justice for a legal opinion as to whether a member of the FBI Director’s Advisory Board held an “Office of Profit or Trust” under the Emoluments Clause, in the context of accepting travel reimbursements from foreign government. In his memorandum on the topic, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Elwood (who wrote an article in the Cato Supreme Court Review just last year) concluded that an advisory board member doesn’t hold such an office “[b]ecause mere access to, or receipt of, classified information is not a delegation by legal authority of a portion of the sovereign power of the United States.”

But that was a different scenario than what we have with Sir Jay. He is a federal employee, listed among seven similar-ranking colleagues on the CMS employee directory. The Office of the Administrator is surely an “Office of Profit or Trust,” implementing and making decisions regarding Medicare, Medicaid, and other parts of the Social Security Act.

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