Boehner just sued Obama, but not over immigration

1. On Friday, November 21, House Republicans filed a lawsuit against President Obama's administration, arguing that it took "unconstitutional and unlawful actions" with the implementation of Obamacare.
2. As expected, the suit focuses on the administration's delay of Obamacare's employer mandate.
3. Unexpectedly, though, the suit also takes aim at another provision of the law. It claims that funds the administration is using to offset costs to insurers weren't properly appropriated. Read more about that from Sarah Kliff here.
4. The suit doesn't mention immigration, but was deliberately timed for the day after Obama announced a dramatic deportation relief plan.

Has the House of Representatives ever sued the president before?

Individual members of Congress, and groups of members, have filed many lawsuits against the president and the executive branch. But neither the House or Senate, as institutions, has ever sued the president for failing to enforce the law.

"The closest was that the Senate Watergate Committee sued President Nixon to get the Watergate tapes," Charles Tiefer of University of Baltimore law school, an expert on separation of powers told me this summer. William & Mary law professor Neal Devins concurred. "There have been lawsuits between Congressional committees and high ranking executive officials over executive privilege claims," Devins says, "but I am unaware of anything precisely like this."

How have past suits from members of Congress fared?

Generally, they haven't done well. The problem is "standing." Courts can only step in to adjudicate specific disputes — cases where the plaintiff has experienced some harm caused by the defendant. Only then does that particular plaintiff have "standing" to sue in federal court — and only then does the court adjudicate the merits of the case. In contrast, if the court finds the plaintiff does not have standing, they dismiss the case without ruling on it.

All of these suits were dismissed due to lack of standing

Boehner's problem is that the vast majority of lawsuits brought by members of Congress against the president on policy issues have been dismissed for lack of standing. As Lyle Denniston of the National Constitution Center wrote in June, "Time after time, when members of Congress have sued in the courts, because the Executive Branch did something that they believe frustrated the will of Congress, they have been met at the door of the courthouse with a polite refusal to let them in." The courts also tend to be skeptical of these suits because Congress has constitutional means by which it can check the president's power on its own — by passing a new law, using the power of the purse to cut off funding, or through impeachment.

In recent decades, several members of Congress sued President Clinton over the short-lived line-item veto act, other members sued Clinton for an executive order establishing environmental protections for certain rivers, and in 2011 Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) sued President Obama for launching the military operation in Libya. All of these suits were dismissed due to lack of standing. In the line-item veto case, Raines v. Byrd, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for a 7-2 Supreme Court majority: "Our standing inquiry has always been especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would force us to decide whether an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government was unconstitutional."

So why would this time be any different?

It might not be. But lawyer David Rivkin and Florida International University law professor Elizabeth Price Foley crafted some new and untested arguments — since adopted by Boehner in a memo to House Republicans — to justify why the House might have standing to sue the president for failing to execute the laws, in the following narrow and specific circumstances:

1. If it's impossible for a private plaintiff to demonstrate harm. If the president is refusing to enforce a law in a way that doesn't cause harm to anyone — but still looks illegal — then, Rivkin and Foley argue, the legislature should be permitted to sue, or else no one would have standing to hold the president to account. For instance, delaying certain Obamacare provisions, changing welfare work requirements, or refusing to deport certain unauthorized immigrants could fall into this category.
2. If there's formal authorization for the suit. In the Raines v. Byrd ruling, Rehnquist wrote that "we attach some importance to the fact that" the members of Congress suing "have not been authorized to represent their respective houses of Congress in this action." Therefore, Rivkin and Foley say, Boehner should seek such authorization from the House.
3. If there's no feasible political remedy. Essentially, Rivkin and Foley argue that Obama's actions are very bad, but not bad enough to merit impeachment. Therefore, they say, the court should step in to ensure the laws are enforced properly.

These arguments were backed up by Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, who was hired by House Republicans to handle the case.

Some staunch conservatives have been downright scornful of Boehner's effort

What do people think of these arguments?

Andrew McCarthy (Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty)

What is the lawsuit specifically about?

In July, Boehner announced that the lawsuit would focus on the delay of Obamacare's employer mandate. "In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it.  That's not the way our system of government was designed to work," Boehner said in a press release.

Sarah Kliff has more background about the employer mandate here and here. Boehner's lawsuit demands that the unpopular mandate be enforced, while Obama argues that he should have the flexibility to delay it.

The final lawsuit — which you can read here — focuses also on the administration's implementation of the ACA's cost-sharing provisions. The law requires and authorizes that certain costs to insurers be offset, but the plaintiffs argue that these funds weren't properly appropriated. "Congress has not, and never has, appropriated any funds (whether through temporary appropriations or permanent appropriations) to make any Section 1402 Offset Program payments to Insurers," the suit says.

This could be an attempt to get a judge to grant standing — if Congress' appropriated funds have been misused, they could conceivably be harmed, and therefore have justification to sue.

How would the lawsuit proceed?

After the House's approval of the lawsuit in July, the lawsuit was filed in federal district court on November 21. Later, it could then theoretically be appealed to the DC Circuit, and eventually to the Supreme Court. If the courts find the House does have standing to sue, and then rules in their favor, Obama would likely be ordered to implement the employer mandate. Theoretically, then, it would be up to him to comply — but if he refused to do so, he'd certainly fuel cries for his impeachment.

How has the Obama Administration responded?

Publicly, they haven't seemed to take it particularly seriously. Obama called it "a stunt" this summer and said "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing." He also said, in a Rose Garden speech, "So sue me." White House counsel Neil Eggleston told a reporter, "As I used to tell clients in private practice, anybody can sue anybody over anything."

What are the broader implications?

Leaving these specific Obamacare provisions aside, let's focus on the broader question of what will happen if the courts decide that the House does in fact have standing to sue the president. Overall, the power of the presidency would be weakened, and the power of Congress and especially the courts would be strengthened.

In recent decades, conservatives have tended to be suspicious of loosening standing requirements, and have argued instead for restraining the judicial role. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a Supreme Court dissent last year that the consequences of loosening standing requirements could be vast. Scalia darkly imagined a system "in which Congress and the Executive can pop immediately into court, in their institutional capacity, whenever the President refuses to implement a statute he believes to be unconstitutional, and whenever he implements a law in a manner that is not to Congress's liking." He added, "Placing the Constitution's entirely anticipated political arm wrestling into permanent judicial receivership does not do the system a favor."

But overall, those who think the president has grown too powerful and unchecked in recent years would probably be happy if the courts placed a new check on executive power. A favorable ruling for Boehner would likely make life somewhat more difficult for any president in power. For instance, one could imagine a Democratic Congress suing a Republican president for improperly implementing Obamacare, or for refusing to enforce environmental laws.

Watch: A 2 minute theory on John Boehner's lawsuit against Obama

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