CHA Republicans Waive Hearing on Frivolous GOP Lawsuit

Brady Concerned About Transparency

July 24, 2014 (Washington, D.C.) In a letter to Rules Committee Chairman, Pete Sessions, Committee on House Administration Chairman, Candice Miller, waived the Committee’s right to hold a hearing on H.Res. 676, a bill to authorize the politically motivated lawsuit against President Obama and his implementation of the Affordable Care Act. As the authorizing Committee for any contracts with outside counsel, waiving this hearing will prevent minority oversight of the lawsuit and hide how much taxpayer money Republicans are willing to waste on this frivolous case.

On July 14, Ranking Member Robert A. Brady (D-PA) sent a letter to Speaker Boehner requesting that House Republicans follow regular order in this case. Citing the improper procedures used by Republicans to pay continually higher amounts in DOMA cases, Committee Democrats do not want to permit Republicans “to use taxpayer dollars as a slush fund to award a no-bid contract to high priced, politically connected Republican Lawyers without any transparency or accountability.”

Chairman Miller responded to this request the next day, ensuring that “the Committee, and Republicans, will be open and transparent about the use of taxpayer money.”

In order to ensure transparency, Ranking Member Brady has requested a special meeting of the Committee to consider the resolution.

“Just because this lawsuit is highly irregular, it does not mean that our procedures should be too,” said Brady. “As Ranking Member of this Committee, I want to prevent another instance of secret money, paid to politically connected friends, with no cap on how much will be spent as we saw in DOMA.”