Following up on yesterday’s post about HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson’s decision to withhold information about the administration’s Medicare estimates, I saw a report in The Hill about the Dems’ next step. Apparently, they’re off to court.
House Democrats are poised to sue the Bush administration for failing to give them more specific answers on a Medicare scoring controversy that is the focus of a government investigation.
The outcome of the likely lawsuit could clearly define the long-debated parameters of congressional oversight over the executive branch.
Leading House Democrats have pressed for details surrounding the administration’s decision earlier this year not to inform Congress that its actuaries projected that the Medicare drug bill would cost almost $140 billion more than the Congressional Budget Office estimate. But in a terse response to the requests, the administration has refused to provide those details.
Leading the way is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, who has already made his intentions clear.
In a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson, Democrats wrote, “[Your] response does not satisfy our request … Unfortunately, there appears to be a concerted effort by the administration to obstruct legitimate congressional inquiries into its actions in this matter.”
The suit, assuming there is one, will likely focus on an obscure legal provision knows as the “seven-member rule.”
According to Waxman and the Dems, the “seven-member rule” requires the executive branch to turn over requested documents if seven or more members of Government Reform Committee request it. (The Committee has 44 members, 20 of whom are Dems.)
Naturally, the Republicans don’t believe the rule applies here. Dennis Smith, the acting Medicare chief, wrote to Waxman two weeks ago, “The [seven-member rule] statute you cite, of course, gives you no right to the [requested documents] … The statute has nothing to do with the material you requested.”
In fact, the Bush administration doesn’t much care for the “seven-member rule” at all, in any context.
Complying with everything sought under the seven-member rule would open the floodgates to numerous requests for information that Congress does not have a right to, according to the administration’s line of thinking.
With this in mind, a Dem lawsuit will likely focus on this rule and its applicability.
Some Democrats believe that the only way to secure guarded information from the administration is through lawsuits. And because House Democrats cannot schedule hearings, the seven-member rule is one of the few legislative tools they have at their disposal.
For what it’s worth, it wouldn’t be the first time. Two years ago, Waxman sued Bush’s Commerce Department when the administration refused to share census data with congressional Dems, who were citing the rule. A federal judge in California agreed with Waxman and ordered the administration to comply with the request. As it turns out, the ruling didn’t matter because the documents were released by way of a different lawsuit, but it’s still a good sign.
The lawsuit could be filed any day now. Stay tuned.