The lawsuit claims that the House didn’t actually pass the bill because of proxy voting.
Topline
Texas is trying to invalidate the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill Congress passed in December, as state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Biden Administration arguing the law wasn’t lawfully passed in the first place–his latest in a string of dozens of legal challenges taking aim at President Joe Biden.
Key Facts
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Texas, takes aim at Biden for signing the spending bill, arguing it didn’t lawfully pass the House of Representatives because less than half of the chamber’s members were actually present at the time.
The law passed the House thanks to proxy voting, allowing members who weren’t present to still vote, but Paxton argued proxy voting is unconstitutional and thus there wasn’t a quorum present in the House at the time to pass the bill.
Proxy voting was in place from 2020 until Republicans did away with it upon taking control of the House in January, and federal courts have already upheld the practice in separate litigation.
Texas specifically took aim at two provisions in the spending bill: A “Pregnant Workers Fairness Act” that requires employers (such as state governments) to make “reasonable accommodations” for employees’ pregnancies and childbirths and imposes harsher penalties if they don’t, and funding for a new pilot program that connects undocumented immigrants with social services.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the spending bill unlawfully passed as a whole, and to issue orders saying Texas doesn’t have to participate in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act or immigration pilot program.
The Justice Department has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Tangent
The omnibus spending bill includes a range of other provisions beyond those that Paxton took aim at, such as $45 billion in funding for Ukraine, $38 billion in emergency disaster assistance, a ban on TikTok from federal government devices, nutrition program assistance and an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act to make it harder for presidential elections to be overturned. While Paxton did not single out those provisions or explicitly ask the court to overturn them, invalidating the spending bill entirely and declaring it unlawful would likely still have an impact on those measures.
Key Background
Paxton has been one of the most litigious opponents of the Biden Administration, with this lawsuit marking the latest in a slew of legal challenges Texas has waged since Biden took office. The AG has filed more than 25 lawsuits against Biden, and the lawsuit filed Wednesday marked his tenth lawsuit filed since the start of 2023 alone. Texas has also recently filed suit against the Biden Administration on such issues as immigration policies, environmental rules, federal land, gun control, abortion, retirement savings, endangered species and the World Health Organization. Before Biden took office, Paxton also led a lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn the 2020 election, which failed and has now led to an investigation and lawsuit by the Texas State Bar against the AG that could lead to him losing his law license. The House’s proxy voting has been controversial with Republicans since it was adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic, even as many GOP lawmakers took advantage of it themselves. The Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit against the practice in January 2022, however, leaving multiple lower court rulings in place that found the proxy voting was legal.
Further Reading
Here’s what’s in the $1.7 trillion federal spending law (CNN)
Supreme Court denies Kevin McCarthy’s challenge to proxy voting in House (Politico)