(Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., is continuing his legal battle over congressional members’ and staffers’ health care enrollment in the D.C. small business exchange by demanding answers to questions raised by an ongoing Obamacare lawsuit.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Mila Kofman, executive director of D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority; House Clerk Karen Haas; and Ileana Garcia, financial clerk for the Senate Disbursing Office, Vitter requested that officials answer questions and provide information previously redacted in documents. As chairman of the Senate’s Small Business Committee, Vitter is seeking to prove officials knowingly mischaracterized Congress as a small business in the health care enrollment, violating D.C. law, which classifies a small business as one with 50 or fewer employees.

Vitter points to questions raised in a taxpayer lawsuit that the watchdog group Judicial Watch filed against DCHBE in October. The suit argues members of Congress and their staff cannot enroll in the D.C. Small Business Health Option Program created by the Affordable Care Act because Congress is not a small business. In January, defendants in the case, including Kofman, acknowledged Congress is not a small business under District law, but said an Office of Personnel Management ruling instructing lawmakers and staffers to enroll in the exchange trumped the local provision.

The case is still playing out in the courts, but with his letter, Vitter is bringing the battle to Capitol Hill, and he said his chairmanship of the Small Business Committee gives him the authority to do so.

“Jurisdiction of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship includes oversight responsibilities affecting or related to small businesses. According to the application DCHBE approved, that now includes Congress in this matter,” Vitter wrote in the letter, which was shared with CQ Roll Call. “Allowing Congress to determine itself as a ‘small business’ should not have passed the common sense test.”