Yost worried about federal overreaches

Oct. 24—LIMA — There's a team readying a lawsuit against the president over mandated COVID-19 vaccinations. There's a fight over the power of the IRS to look into bank accounts.

While Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is a Republican and President Joe Biden is a Democrat, party politics aren't at play, Yost said Friday while in Lima for a Republican party chairmen's meeting. It's the Constitution that he's trying to defend.

"Most of the things that we are in court about are based on federalism issues," Yost said.

Yost expressed his frustration about what he perceives as an overreach of Biden's administration into things that should be handled by state and local governments or by the federal House and Senate.

"It goes to the first principals of the Constitution, ideas like separation of powers and checks and balances," Yost said. "The difference between a democracy and a kingdom is in a democracy, the king doesn't get to make the laws. The elected representatives of the people have the right to make the laws."

Yost sees that in play with Biden's threat to put out a rule requiring all employees with 100 or more employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines.

"That's one of those things that is simply beyond the power of the president to order, and I and 23 other attorneys general have pledged that if he promulgates that order, on the same day we'll be in court asking for an injunction," Yost said.

There isn't much precedent for a move like that by a president, Yost said, and is a role that the legislature should handle. The potential lawsuit filings are in motion, with Yost coyly saying, "We've done some research."

Yost has also stepped up to complain about a proposal before Congress to allow the IRS to look at your bank account. Democrats originally proposed a minimum for account balances and transactions of $600, onto back down to a $10,000 minimum a few days ago.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke in favor of the proposal Tuesday.

"If people are breaking the law and not paying their taxes, one way to track them is through the banking measure," Pelosi said.

Yost noted law enforcement must get a subpoena before they can look at a bank account, backed by a judge and not just a curiosity.

"The IRS mostly operates in secret, for good reasons," Yost said. "But that means that they're largely unsupervised, and giving that much power to an unsupervised federal agency is like throwing a party for the high school football team at your house and hoping they don't hit the liquor cabinet."

Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.