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After searching for months to find an attorney who would take their case, House Republicans made good on their threat to sue the Obama administration Friday, filing a lawsuit challenging the president's authority to enact key parts of the Affordable Care Act. The case has been considered a long shot by legal scholars, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly rebuffed members of Congress suing on constitutional grounds. (Levey, 11/21)

The suit accuses the Obama administration of unlawfully postponing a requirement that larger employers offer health coverage to their full-time employees or pay penalties. (Larger companies are defined as those with 50 or more employees.) ... The suit also challenges what it says is President Obama’s unlawful giveaway of roughly $175 billion to insurance companies under the law. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the administration will pay that amount to the companies over the next 10 years, though the funds have not been appropriated by Congress. (Parker, 11/21)

The House’s lawsuit against the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare includes a new charge against the law’s cost-sharing provisions. The suit says the administration has no authority to make payments to insurers to fund the cost-sharing program, as it began doing in January. The complaint contends the health care law requires cost-sharing payments from the insurers — presumably with the understanding that the government would repay them — but doesn’t make those payments contingent on the government and Congress appropriating the funding. (Haberkorn, 11/21)

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said in a statement that lawmakers had an obligation to act to protect the Constitution. “Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and rewrite federal law on his own without a vote of Congress. That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work,” he said. (Crittenden and Kendall, 11/21)

The move was expected for months -- the GOP-controlled House of Representatives voted to approve the lawsuit in July. But Boehner had trouble retaining a law firm that would take the case because of the political furor over the controversial health care law. (Walsh and Bash, 11/21)

The White House dismissed the lawsuit Friday as meritless and as a waste of money. “Instead of passing legislation to help expand the middle class and grow the economy, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans are spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars pursuing a lawsuit that is without any sound legal basis,” White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said. (Gerstein and French, 11/21)

[The suit] appeared to be choreographed to burnish the GOP’s narrative of President Barack Obama as a ruler who thinks he’s above the law. (Douglas, Doyle and Pugh, 11/21)

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and drafted by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, escalates a brewing battle between GOP lawmakers and the Obama administration over separation of powers. Here’s a quick overview of its legal arguments. (Gershman, 11/21)