The lawmakers hope to accomplish this through an amendment to unrelated disaster legislation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the amendment would “very simply prohibit the Department of Justice from using any funding to litigate the downfall of the [ACA] in the circuit court,” according to the report.
The news comes after the Justice Department announced March 25 that it supports a Texas judge’s ruling that the entire federal health law be invalidated.
The federal judge in December sided with the Republican-led states that brought the lawsuit, Texas v. United States. Plaintiffs in the case argue that the tax law signed by President Donald Trump in December 2017, which eliminated the law’s individual mandate penalties, made the mandate unconstitutional and the rest of the ACA invalid.
The Justice Department had previously said it wouldn’t defend major provisions of the ACA and argued that the act’s protections for people with preexisting conditions can’t be separated from the mandate and should be invalidated.
The case is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
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