At 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear argument on the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, et al., No. 1:14-cv-01967 (D.D.C.). The defendants are the Departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury, and the secretaries of those two executive branch agencies. The Administration is seeking to prevent the Court from reaching the merits of this historic case, which was authorized by an affirmative vote of the entire House of Representatives on July 30, 2014, and which the House filed for the purpose of protecting our constitutional structure.
The House’s underlying complaint asserts two sets of claims, both of which concern the Affordable Care Act, and both of which allege that the defendants have violated the Constitution. These violations run to the very foundation of the separation of powers doctrine that underpins our entire system of government because they usurp Congress’s powers to appropriate public funds and to legislate. The first five counts concern defendants’ ongoing payment of billions of dollars to insurance companies. These payments were ordered by the Administration despite the fact that Congress, which has the exclusive constitutional power to appropriate public funds for expenditure, (i) rebuffed the Administration’s specific request for an annual appropriation of $4 billion in FY 2014, and (ii) has never at any other time appropriated any funds for such payments. (Such payments to insurance companies currently run at approximately $300 million per month, and are estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to total $175 billion over the next ten fiscal years.)
The last three counts concern the defendants’ unilateral rewriting of specific provisions of the Affordable Care Act, namely, provisions that impose mandates on certain employers and establish a deadline by which such employers must comply with those mandates. The executive actions addressed in the Nullification Counts are estimated to cost federal taxpayers at least $12 billion.
Tomorrow’s hearing does not address the constitutionality of defendants’ actions. Rather, it only addresses the threshold question of whether the House has a right to have its claims heard in federal court, that is, whether a house of Congress has “standing” to bring this case. This threshold question is extremely important because Congress’s “Power of the Purse” is a linchpin of our divided power system of government. The power to decide which federal programs shall be funded, and which shall not, is fundamental to Congress’s ability to exercise a check upon the vast powers of the executive branch. Defendants’ argument that the court cannot hear the House’s claims in this case is extremely dangerous for our system of government, and for the American people whose liberty ultimately rests on the ability of the three branches actively to check each other. This is so because, if the executive can spend public funds in the absence of an appropriation from Congress (as defendants are doing here), and if the House is barred from getting into federal court to challenge this action (as defendants argue here), then Congress’s ability to use the “Power of the Purse” to check the executive largely disappears.
I will be joined in the courtroom by an experienced team of attorneys from the Office of the General Counsel of the House: General Counsel Kerry Kircher; Deputy General Counsel William Pittard; Senior Assistant General Counsel Todd Tatelman; and Assistant Counsels Eleni Roumel, Isaac Rosenberg, and Kimberly Hamm. Their collective knowledge of legislative and executive powers is unparalleled, and I am honored to represent the House with them.
We will make a brief statement following the hearing outside the courthouse.
Jonathan Turley
Lead Counsel
Squeek, LOL. It was Gorgeous George. Curious George was the great children’s book series. You have enough self esteem to laugh.
BDS. LOL!
Also from the Associated Press:
Administration asks judge to toss House health care suit
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2015-05-28-US–House-Health%20Law%20Lawsuit/id-6e7fdb98cc254d34bcc6892bb18f214d
Excerpt:
Collyer, a 2003 appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, gave the House side reason to be hopeful with her aggressive sparring with the Justice Department’s McElvain. She will rule at a later date.
The partisan political backdrop of the lawsuit resonated at various points in the courtroom, including when Collyer questioned whether impeachment could be an alternative remedy rather than suing. She then quickly added, addressing the spectator gallery filled with reporters: “I don’t mean to suggest… Don’t anyone write that down.”
@NickS
I sort of remember my father talking about old timey wrestlers called Dirty Dick Murdock and Killer Karl Kox, but most of what I have personally seen is on syfy and USA channel over the last few years off and on. IIRC I think I also saw a documentary once on Curious George or something like that???
Sooo, I am waiting to hear about how the hearing went, too.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick…anyone as old as I am who grew up in Detroit in the 40’s & 50’s knows who “Dick the Bruiser” was … we excuse his dalliance with the Green Bay Packers under another name William Afflis 😀
The judge also asked the flummoxed WH attorney, “Why is this not an insult to the Constitution?”
Seems like a “slam dunk” in your/Congress’ favor. Let’s hope the judge agrees.
GREAT NEWS that JT probably can’t post, maybe he can. Anyway, the AP is reporting the judge today ripped the WH attorney w/ questions like, “You don’t really believe that do you?” And, “I have a hard time taking that seriously.” I’m sure JT was only smiling on the inside. When the other attorney is getting ripped a new one, you just stand there poker faced.
Squeek, LOL! I love the “wrasslin'” metaphor. My maternal grandma loved those guys back in the 1960’s. Names you are too young to remember, Haystack Calhoun, Bruno Sanmartino, Wahoo McDaniel, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Dick the Bruiser. Being a movie buff, I assume you have seen Mickey Rourke’s comeback performance in The Wrestler. It showed the reality of that sport.
@NickS
You said, “The attacks on JT for upholding the Constitution tells you everything these Dem operatives are all about. They love him when he holds Republicans accountable, but skewer him when he holds their precious guy accountable. ”
Yep. You nailed it. That is why when JT does or says things outside the leftist agenda, he has to preface his remarks with something like, “Even though I am a liberal” or “even though I am a Democrat”. It’s because that whole side of the political spectrum is extremely rigid in their adherence to Party Uber Alles.
Like I have said here numerous times,
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PT,
“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of
the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they
intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require
an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion
or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from
the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their
interests.”
― Alexander Hamilton
_______________
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
-Alexander Hamilton
_______________
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
SWM, this is what a non-partisan statement looks like. (nicely said phillyT)
“…I applaud JT for supporting the separation of powers, reigning in presidential power, and asking Congress to do its job. No president Republican or Democrat is going to give up power voluntarily–Congress must take it back.”
SWM, this is what a partisan statement looks like.
“As a lifelong Democrat with Democratic Socialist tendencies, let me say that…the party with the real record for supporting the return of the monarchy is the Republican party. So. Hear hear, three cheers for the Republican Congress for trying to take back their power and accept responsibility and actually start doing their jobs again, regardless of what racist and/or political reasons got them started down this road.” (again, nicely said.)
I hope you find this instructive.
😉
As a lifelong Democrat with Democratic Socialist tendencies, let me say that I applaud JT for supporting the separation of powers, reigning in presidential power, and asking Congress to do its job. No president Republican or Democrat is going to give up power voluntarily–Congress must take it back.
But let’s be clear, the party with the real record for supporting the return of the monarchy is the Republican party. So. Hear hear, three cheers for the Republican Congress for trying to take back their power and accept responsibility and actually start doing their jobs again, regardless of what racist and/or political reasons got them started down this road.
U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 4
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors.”
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Let’s start with Federal District Judge Rosemary Collyer who purports not to understand the Constitution.
“In what rational universe is exercising the House appropriation power not a concrete injury?”
Prof. Turley argued the injury was the House being stripped of its fundamental power of the purse.
A statement of fact is not argument and it is “Treason, or other High crimes and Misdemeanors” for a judge to ignore and subvert the very Constitution itself.
The ostensible inability of Judge Collyer to perceive the obvious and glaring “concrete injury” inherent in this most recent abrogation of the Constitution is not plausible, leaving ideology as her motivation – her “high crime and misdemeanor.”
The entire judicial branch has a legally binding duty to represent well and support the literal Constitution. To convolute, obfuscate, “interpret” and “legislate from the bench” is a “High crime and Misdemeanor.”
The next case for Prof. Turley is the “overreach” of the judicial branch which has lost objectivity and found ideology.
Impeachment. There are many cases ready for the docket. The Congress and Senate must take this tool out of the box and sharpen it well. Long lines at the metaphorical “guillotines” should begin forming directly. The Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights have had enough.
The attacks on JT for upholding the Constitution tells you everything these Dem operatives are all about. They love him when he holds Republicans accountable, but skewer him when he holds their precious guy accountable. When you are neither a Dem or Rep, it is CRYSTAL clear. And it is abundantly clear on any thread involving King v Burwell.
SWM,
Do you believe government is currently operating within its constitutional limits? That’s a non-partisan question. If the answer is no, then what remedy should be used to restore government to its constitutional purpose?
“…an affirmative vote…”
as the result of a vote taken
“…of the entire house..”
Doesn’t a quorum and a majority if not the entire House usually vote affirmatively or in dissent,
Mr. Spinserver?
NO Democrats voted to move forward with the lawsuit. How does it harm the entire House when only Republicans voted to proceed with the lawsuit?
Paul C lol Bi-partisan vote against the lawsuit but not for it.
anobserver,
Adding or deleting the word “entire” does absolutely nothing to the purpose of the statement. So let’s delete the word “entire” and add “No Democrats and 5 Republicans voted against suing the Obama Administration because they have no intention of honoring their oath of office.”
There, that’s more like it.