The House Representatives can pursue its lawsuit against the Obama Administration that claims funding subsidies under the Act violate the Constitution.
Judge Rosemary M. Collyer the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., noted that her decision only cleared the way for the House to pursue its lawsuit, and “the merits this lawsuit await another .” The Administration said it will appeal the ruling.
Led primarily by its Republican members, the House Representatives filed the lawsuit in November 2014 against Sylvia Burwell, the Secretary and Human Services (HHS) and Jacob Lew, Secretary the Treasury.
The suit argues that by issuing the subsidies, the Secretaries “spent billions unappropriated dollars” to support the , in violation the Constitution’s requirement that all federal spending must be appropriated by Congress.
The Administration argued that the House lacked standing to sue and stop the expenditure for which Congress had not appropriated funds. Attorneys for the House responded that it did have standing because, as a result the Secretaries’ actions, it had been “divested utterly and completely its most defining constitutional function.”
On this issue, wrote the judge, “the Court agrees: the constitutional trespass alleged in this case would inflect a concrete, particular harm upon the House for which it has standing to seek redress in this Court.”
The Constitution “vests Congress with exclusive power over the federal purse,” the judge wrote. “Yet this constitutional structure would collapse, and the role the House would be meaningless, if the Executive could circumvent the appropriations process and spend funds however it pleases.”
The court rejected a second claim in the House’s lawsuit, that the Administration’s decision to change enforcement the ’s Mandate also subverted the role the House. That’s an argument over implementation a statute, not a constitutional question, the judge ruled, and on that issue the House does not have standing to sue.