On Nov. 21, House Republicans filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over unilateral actions President Barack Obama took on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which they contend are abuses of his executive authority, according to The New York Times.
The lawsuit is the latest in the series of increasingly polarized partisan disputes regarding President Obama's recent actions in the White House; House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced the house had filed the lawsuit just minutes after publicly denouncing President Obama's decision to defer the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States.
But is it fair to claim President Obama's administration is an "imperial presidency," as some Republicans have coined it? Is the House's lawsuit representative of good policy, or is it really just political grandstanding? The following five thoughts explore both sides of the dispute.
1. The House's case. The suit, filed in Washington, D.C., focuses on two key executive decisions President Obama made regarding the PPACA. The first part of the lawsuit address his unilateral decision to twice delay the PPACA's employer mandate, initially postponed in January 2013 until 2015 and then once again until 2016.
Secondly, the suit alleges the administration illegally planned to pay about $175 billion to insurance companies over the next decade, in addition to the $3 billion already paid this year, in the form of subsidies to help low- and middle-income people pay for their health insurance premiums. Those funds have not been appropriated by Congress.
2. What Republicans are saying. "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," Speaker Boehner said. "That's not the way our system of government was designed to work. If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well. The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution, and that is exactly why we are pursuing this course of action."
According to Mr. Boehner, the House of Representatives must challenge President Obama's decision to unilaterally change provisions of the PPACA, because if they don't, his administration will set a precedent for future presidents to change laws without going through Congress.
3. A change of heart? Since the healthcare law was passed in 2010 (absent any Republican votes), House Republicans have voted dozens of times to repeal all or part of it, according to the New York Times. So, it is not surprising that this lawsuit has raised a few skeptical, Democratic eyebrows.
Why, after almost four years of vehement cries for the end of the PPACA, is the House now arguing President Obama is exceeding his executive authority by how he enforces it?
According to Mr. Boehner's remarks, the primary concern of the House lawsuit is not the healthcare law and how President Obama's changes to how it is enforced affects Americans. Rather, the allegations against the president are focused on defining limits to his executive authority.
4. What Democrats are saying. Eric Schultz, the White House deputy press secretary, called the lawsuit "unfortunate," according to the New York Times. "At a time where we — I think the American people want Washington focused on jobs and the economy, the House Republicans choose to sue us, sue the president for doing his job — and using taxpayer resources at the same time — for a lawsuit that their own congressional research service could not identify any merit for," Mr. Schultz said.
Whether the House's lawsuit has merit has been hotly contested. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called the lawsuit "the howls of impeachment-hungry extremists," according to a recent report, while Mr. Boehner maintains he is preventing an imminent threat to the Constitution.
5. The third attorney's the charm. Two attorneys, David Rifkin and then William Burck, have already withdrawn from the House's case against the Obama administration. Mr. Boehner hired Jonathan Turley last week, a professor of public law at George Washington University, according to The Atlantic, to represent the House. Republican officials told reporters the first two lawyers quit after their law firms came under pressure from Democratic clients over the handling of such a partisan case.
Mr. Turley, on the other hand, wrote a blog post after being hired by Mr. Boehner: "We are prepared to litigate this matter as far as necessary. The question presented by this lawsuit is whether we will live in a system of shared and equal powers, as required by our Constitution, or whether we will continue to see the rise of a dominant executive with sweeping unilateral powers. That question is worth of review and resolution in our federal courts."
Nancy Pelosi shared a less excited response at the news of Mr. Turley's appointment. "After scouring Washington for months, Republicans have finally found a TV lawyer to file their meritless lawsuit," she said in a statement.
The news that House Republicans are paying Mr. Turley $500-an-hour in taxpayer money to sue the president has further heightened animosity across the partisan divide.