GOP-led House OKs lawsuit against Obama

A sharply divided House approved a Republican plan Wednesday to launch a campaign-season lawsuit against President Barack Obama, accusing him of exceeding the bounds of his constitutional authority. Obama and other Democrats derided the effort as a stunt aimed at tossing political red meat to conservative voters.

Just a day before lawmakers were to begin a five-week summer recess, debate over the proposed lawsuit underscored the harshly partisan tone that has dominated the current Congress almost from its start in January 2013.

The vote to sue Obama was 225 to 201. Five conservative Republicans voted with Democrats in opposing the lawsuit. No Democrats voted for it.

The planned lawsuit is expected to generate months of bitter campaign rhetoric from both Republicans and Democrats ahead of November elections that will determine the political control of Congress next year.

The suit is expected to claim that Obama, a Democrat, exceeded his executive authority in making unilateral changes to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

Republicans argue that by delaying some health care coverage mandates and granting various waivers, he bypassed Congress in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Republicans have complained about other unilateral actions that Obama has taken to advance his agenda, from executive orders on immigration policy to same-sex partner benefits.

"Are you willing to let any president choose what laws to execute and what laws to change?" asked House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

The Republicans also scoffed at Democratic claims that the lawsuit would be a waste of taxpayers' money.

"What price do you place on the continuation of our system of checks and balances? What price do you put on the Constitution of the United States?" said Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan. "My answer to each is `priceless.'"

Democrats have slammed the lawsuit effort as a politically motivated waste of taxpayer resources.

Congressional lawsuits against presidents are rare. In 2008, a federal judge backed a suit by Democrats who then controlled the House and were trying to force the administration of then-President George W. Bush to honor House subpoenas of senior White House officials. Though the House won the first round in court, that decision was under appeal when a settlement was reached and the lawsuit was dropped.

On Wednesday, neither side wasted time in using the fight to mine campaign contributions and line up support for their candidates.

House Democrats emailed one fundraising solicitation as debate was underway and another moments after the vote, with one saying, "The GOP is chomping at the bit to impeach the president."

Boehner, however, has said he has no such plans and has called Democratic impeachment talk a "scam" to raise money.

The Republican Party also went to work. An email called the House vote a "huge step" in curbing Obama and added, "Contribute right now to end Obama's executive overreach by expanding our Republican majority in the House and gaining a majority in the Senate."

On the road in Kansas City, Missouri, Obama cast the lawsuit as a "political stunt" and a distraction from the public's priorities.

"Every vote they're taking like that means a vote they're not taking to actually help you," he told his audience. He urged Republicans to "stop just hating all the time."

By suing Obama to demand that he carry out specific provisions of the 2010 health care overhaul, House Republicans would be asking the courts to hold him to the letter of a law that they all opposed and that the House has voted over 50 times to dismantle.

Timothy K. Lewis, a former judge in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who was nominated by former President George H.W. Bush, said that with appeals, it would take at least one-and-a-half to two years for the suit to wind through the federal judicial system.

Obama is currently set to leave office in January 2017.

Wire services