The House passed a resolution Thursday authorizing Speaker Paul Ryan to file a Supreme Court amicus brief in support of Texas, which is suing to stop President Obama’s recent actions to defer some illegal immigrants.
The measure passed 234-186 after Republicans and Democrats engaged in a heated debate about immigration on the House floor, an issue that has continually divided the two parties and fractured the GOP. Every Democrat voted against it, and were joined by five Republican lawmakers.
But Republicans were largely in agreement on Thursday that the House should defend the right of Congress to make laws, and that the president overstepped his constitutional authority in 2014 when he ordered authorities to defer the deportation of thousands of people now living here illegally.
“This resolution is not about policy, it’s about the law,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “It’s about the Constitution of the United States and the checks and balances demanded by the American Constitution.”
Democrats said Obama’s move preserved families by deferring deportation of the parents of children who are legal residents. They blamed Republicans for blocking immigration reform proposals that would have provided a pathway to citizenship or legalization for those now living here illegally.
“In the absence of Congress doing its job, thank goodness this president used his executive authority that existed under the law,” said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo.
With Thursday’s vote, Ryan will now be able to argue before the high court on behalf of the House of Representatives that Obama broke the law.
Texas and 25 states sued the Obama administration to block the action, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued an injunction to prevent it from being implemented. The injunction has survived higher court challenges and now sits before the U.S. Supreme Court, which said it would probe an additional question: Did the action violate the president’s duties to “take care that the law is faithfully executed?”
The House is taking an unprecedented step by preparing to argue the case. While lawmakers have filed amicus arguments with the Supreme Court in the past, they have never done so on behalf of the House.
“If we’re going to maintain the principle of government by consent of the governed, then the legislative branch needs to be writing the laws, not the executive branch, and certainly not a branch of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats,” Ryan said in a floor speech before the vote. “As Speaker, I believe the authority of my office must be dedicated to protecting the authority of this body. So I am prepared to make our case.”
Attorney Paul Clement will represent the House pro bono, a Ryan aide said. Clement has advised “that it is best for the House to speak as a whole on this matter.”
