House Republicans on Friday announced their long-anticipated lawsuit to challenge President Obama’s unilateral actions on his healthcare law.
The lawsuit contends the president overstepped his legal authority when he acted alone to wave the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it.
The lawsuit was filed against the departments of Health and Human Services and the Treasury.
“Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and re-write federal law on his own without a vote of Congress,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work.”
Boehner said the Republican-controlled House has an obligation “to stand up for the Constitution.”
“If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well,” he said.
House Republicans voted in July to sue the president over his actions to waive provisions of the law.
The lawsuit also challenges what it says is the administration’s “unlawful giveaway” of about $175 billion to insurance companies under Obamacare. Republicans point to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that says the administration will pay about $3 billion to insurance companies for fiscal 2014 and about $175 billion over the next 10 years under an HHS-based cost-sharing program. Republicans say Congress never approved the funding and accuse the president of “unconstitutionally” using funds from a separate Treasury Department account to pay insurance companies.
The lawsuit comes hours after the president bypassed Congress to issue an executive order to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, a move decried by Republicans as unconstitutional.
Boehner has hired prominent constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley to handle the Obamacare lawsuit for the House Republicans. Turley, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, has been an outspoken critic of what he has viewed as executive overreach by both Obama and former President George W. Bush.
Two other lawyers had considered representing the lawmakers but eventually backed out.
Democrats blasted the lawsuit, saying it’s nothing more than political grandstanding.
“After scouring Washington for months, Republicans have finally found a TV lawyer to file their meritless lawsuit,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “The fact is, this lawsuit is a bald-faced attempt to achieve what Republicans have been unable to achieve through the political process.
“The legislative branch cannot sue simply because they disagree with the way a law passed by a different Congress has been implemented.”
