One big obstacle stands in way of House lawsuit against Obama
By NCC Staff17 hours ago
House Republicans have filed a lawsuit against President Barack Obama they first approved in July, but the legal action will need to tackle a significant legal hurdle to move forward: the issue of standing.
On Friday, the GOP leaders sued the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services over two aspects of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley filed the lawsuit at the request of the House Republican leadership in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.The House Republicans worked with two lawyers on the lawsuit option, who dropped from the case, before Turley came on board last week.
Link: Read Full Lawsuit
Turley’s suit claims the Obama administration illegally postponed a requirement that companies with 50 or more employees offer health coverage to full-time employees or pay penalties, and also that the Obama administration will give away about $175 billion to insurance companies under the law as part of a program called cost-sharing reductions.
“In challenging these actions, this case addresses fundamental issues regarding limits of Executive power under our constitutional form of government, and the continued viability of the separation of powers doctrine upon which ‘the whole American fabric has been erected,’ ” the suit says.
One big barrier will be the constitutional requirement of standing to sue. The House leaders will need to prove that the House as an institution was injured by the Obama administration’s actions and the injuries can be fixed by the court.
In July, John Malcolm and Elizabeth Slattery from the Heritage Foundation summed up the legal roadblock in an in-depth research finding.
“The House will have to demonstrate to a court’s satisfaction that as an institution, it has been personally harmed by President Obama’s actions, which have effectively nullified the votes of its members, leaving it little recourse to rectify this injustice without court intervention,” they said. “Such a lawsuit would require the courts to police the limits of the political branches’ powers, and overcoming the natural reluctance of courts to get involved in disputes that have political overtones involving the other branches of government will not be easy.”
Another problem would be that the court could say that Congress has a way to redress the injuries allegedly suffered at the hands of President Obama – by impeaching him.
Back in 2011, 10 members of Congress did sue President Obama over his decision to use military force in Libya. According to a Congressional Research Service report from 2012, a reviewing federal district court dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds due to lack of standing.
“While there may conceivably be some political benefit in suing the President and the Secretary of Defense, in light of shrinking judicial budgets, scarce judicial resources, and a heavy caseload, the Court finds it frustrating to expend time and effort adjudicating the relitigation of settled questions of law,” federal judge Reggie Walton said.
Judge Walton expressed dismay that the plaintiffs wanted “to achieve what appear to be purely political ends, when it should be clear to them that this Court is powerless to depart from clearly established precedent of the Supreme Court and the District of Columbia Circuit.”
Whether Judge Walton’s decision is an indicator of the current lawsuit’s future remains to seen, many legal observers believe the standing issue is critical to any effort by House Republicans to seek help from the courts going forward, and that a lawsuit from a state or an individual would “stand” a better chance with the standing issue.
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