Boehner Lawsuit Will Focus On Obama's Unilateral Actions On Obamacare Employer Mandate

Speaker of the House John Boehner announced this morning that the separation of powers lawsuit the House will be filing against Obama will focus on the President's unilateral actions on the health care law’s employer mandate in 2013. In making the announcement he issued the following statement:

“Today we’re releasing a draft resolution that will authorize the House to file suit over the way President Obama unilaterally changed the 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. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own.

“As I’ve said, this isn't about Republicans versus Democrats; it’s about the Legislative Branch versus the Executive Branch, and above all protecting the Constitution. The Constitution states that the president must faithfully execute the laws, and spells out that only the Legislative Branch has the power to legislate. The current president believes he has the power to make his own laws – at times even boasting about it. He has said that if Congress won’t make the laws he wants, he’ll go ahead and make them himself, and in the case of the employer mandate in his health care law, that’s exactly what he did. 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 Legislative Branch, and the Constitution, and that is exactly what we will do.”

NOTE: The president’s unilateral actions on the health care law’s employer mandate will be the focus of the litigation brought by the House (the text of the resolution can be found here.)

On one hand the suit is valid, Obama is overreaching on so many issues including Obamacare.  And asking the courts to adjudicate the separation of powers is preferable to the extreme step of Impeachment.

On the other hand the courts hate playing mediator between the other branches of government and may just decide to dismiss it. The fact that it is about the employer mandate might not be the best of optics, as the liberals will say the suit about separation of powers is simply another attempt to kill Obamacare.