The litigation will focus solely on the 2013 delay of the employer mandate. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Employer mandate at heart of lawsuit

House Republicans will base their lawsuit against President Barack Obama on the administration’s “unilateral” decision to delay the employer mandate provision in Obamacare, Speaker John Boehner said Thursday.

Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) released a draft resolution that would authorize the House to move forward with a case against Obama for what House Republicans are characterizing as a broad abuse of executive power. The resolution will be considered by the committee next week and a vote on the House floor is expected by the end of July.


The lawsuit has deepened animosity between the Obama administration and the Republican-dominated House in months ahead of an election that could also flip the Senate to GOP control. Until Thursday, Boehner had been mum about what he considered to be the grounds for the legal action. Potential options included everything from Obama’s actions on immigration to health care and the president’s decision to trade detainees in Guantanamo Bay for an American prisoner of war without notifying Congress.

But the lawsuit will ultimately focus solely on the delay of an Obamacare provision that required most businesses to provide health insurance. Guidance provided by Boehner’s office said that the lawsuit will argue that executive orders to delay the rule were a clear instance where Obama changed the law without congressional approval.

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“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 Ohio Republican said. “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.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it’s “disappointing that Speaker Boehner and Congressional Republicans have decided to waste time and taxpayer dollars on a political stunt.”

“At a time when Washington should be working to expand economic opportunities for the middle class, Republican leaders in Congress are playing Washington politics rather than working with the president on behalf of hardworking Americans,” Earnest said.

New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, called the lawsuit the GOP’s “most wild and desperate stunt yet.”

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The decision to hinge the lawsuit on Obamacare is a major strike against the White House. Opposition to the law is at the center of the GOP’s election-year argument that Democratic policies are stymieing economic growth.

But Republicans have stumbled before when they’ve focused all their energy on Obamacare. The party took a political hit last year when the GOP pushed the government into the first shutdown in 17 years in an unsuccessful attempt to defund the law. And, of course, the Supreme Court upheld a key Obamacare provision that requires individual to obtain health insurance or pay a tax.

Boehner made the announcement the same day that a Commonwealth Fund study found Obamacare is helping reduce the number of uninsured Americans. That study credited the healthcare law with cutting the uninsured rate from 20 percent to 15 percent.

Democrats have resoundingly rejected the lawsuit as a political stunt meant to drum up the Republican base. Obama has mocked the idea, saying in a speech earlier this month he still planned to move forward with executive orders.

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“So sue me,” Obama said.

The employer mandate - a provision in the 2010 health care law that requires businesses with more than 50 workers to provide health coverage - has long been a target for Republicans. But Obama still enraged the GOP when the administration announced in July 2013 that the provision would be delayed until 2015 - after the midterm elections. The administration later announced more delays, saying the requirement would be phased in more slowly.

Republicans have criticized the provision as a job killer and it has caused a stream of headaches for the White House over press reports — nearly all anecdotal — that small businesses were cutting back on hiring because of the provision.

Even though the White House has dismissed criticism of the employer mandate delays - it has said in the past the provision is “not critical” to Obamacare broadly - Democrats have been wary of the optics of cutting a break for business while individuals are still tied to an individual mandate.

The resolution now heads to the Rules Committee for a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. After that hearing, which will feature Republican-selected witnesses testifying on the merits of the lawsuit, the Rules Committee will hold a mark-up on the actual resolution. The version issued on Thursday was just a draft.

“The President’s failure to uphold his oath dangerously shifts the balance of power away from what the Founding Fathers intended and the Constitution requires. Congress’ ability to effectively represent the American people is severely restricted when the executive unilaterally chooses to create its own laws,” Sessions said.

Once the resolution passes the Rules Committee, which is expected, it will head to the House floor for a vote. Boehner will then be authorized to move forward with formal civil proceedings against Obama.

The case will be heard in a federal court.