Our firm is proud to have an active but small practice area devoted to public interest law. People frequently ask “what is public interest law?”
For our firm it is assuring that government actors — legislators, school boards, county commissioners, City Council members, as well as administrators — Mayors, City Managers, zoning officials, the IRS, and others — stay within the bounds of their constitutional and statutory authority. When they exceed those bounds, many times there is a cause of action and Judge who will stop them in their tracks. We are glad to represent plaintiffs in those actions.
There is no better example of this practice area than the U.S. House of Representatives’ suit against the Obama administration for spending $5 billion per year on the Affordable Care Act a/k/a ObamaCare without express authorization from Congress to spend the money. This is indicative of an administration raging out of control.
The House of Representatives under then-Speaker John Boehner authorized and pursued the suit. Liberal pundits across the nation argued that the House lacked standing to sue, and that it was a foolish waste of money. Both turned out to be untrue.
Today, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collier ruled that the administration’s spending of those funds was unconstitutional and that it had to stop. Read more about that decision here. Read the whole decision here.
This is an important decision with broad-ranging implications for reining in the Presidency and out-of-control federal agencies.