Also known as: nonjusticiable political questions · political question doctrine · political question
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A claim or controversy that federal courts decline to adjudicate because the Constitution textually commits the issue to a coordinate political branch or because no judicially discoverable and manageable standards exist for its resolution.
Naveen Nanda and other voters in a rapidly growing urban county sued state officials after the legislature left their district severely underpopulated relative to rural districts. The complaint alleged that the resulting vote dilution violated equal protection. The district court denied the motion to dismiss on political-question grounds and proceeded to apply one-person-one-vote standards.
Norman Nash, a removed federal officer, challenged the Senate's decision to delegate evidence-taking to a committee and to forgo live witnesses. The complaint sought to invalidate the Senate's chosen procedures. The court dismissed the suit, holding that the constitutional assignment of the sole power to try impeachments rendered the claim nonjusticiable.
Noelle North and a business group sued to invalidate a voter-approved initiative that transferred all tax authority to randomly selected citizens. The complaint asserted that the measure violated the Guarantee Clause by eliminating representative government. The court dismissed the action as a nonjusticiable political question.
Nathaniel Newman and a coalition of voters challenged a congressional map that packed their party into a handful of districts while cracking the rest. The complaint relied solely on efficiency-gap metrics showing extreme partisan asymmetry. The court granted the motion to dismiss, concluding that the claim presented a nonjusticiable political question.
Nyah Ndlovu, an alien facing deportation, challenged a one-house legislative veto that overrode an executive suspension of her removal. The government argued that the Naturalization Clause committed the entire subject to Congress. The court rejected the political-question defense and reached the merits of the separation-of-powers claim.
In 1966 Jagdish Rai Chadha, an East Indian born in Kenya who held a British passport, was lawfully admitted to the United States on a nonimmigrant student visa that expired on June 30, 1972. In October 1973, the District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service informed Chadha that he had remained longer than permitted and was therefore deportable. Chadha conceded deportability but applied for suspension under section 244(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. On June 25, 1974, an Immigration Judge acting on behalf of the Attorney General suspended Chadha's deportation and adjusted his status to permanent resident after finding that he satisfied the statutory criteria of seven years' continuous presence, good moral character, and extreme hardship. A report of the suspension was transmitted to Congress as required by the Act. On December 16, 1975, the House of Representatives passed a resolution disapproving the suspension for Chadha and five other aliens on the ground that they did not meet the statutory requirements, particularly as to hardship. Pursuant to the House resolution, the Immigration Judge reopened the deportation proceedings. Chadha moved to terminate them on constitutional grounds, but the Immigration Judge ruled that he lacked authority to declare the resolution unconstitutional and ordered Chadha deported. Chadha appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which likewise held that it had no authority to pass on the constitutionality of the resolution and dismissed the appeal. Chadha then filed a petition for review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Immigration and Naturalization Service appeared and urged the court to hold the House resolution unconstitutional. After inviting briefs from the Senate and House as amici curiae, the Court of Appeals held the resolution unconstitutional because it was a legislative act that failed to satisfy the requirements of Article I, sections 1 and 7, and set aside the deportation order. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the consolidated cases to address the constitutional question.
View caseNestor Navarro and the losing presidential candidate sought to overturn a state court's recount procedures that altered certified vote totals. The complaint asserted that the state process violated the Electors Clause. The Supreme Court resolved the case on equal-protection grounds without treating the underlying election contest as a nonjusticiable political question.
On November 8, 2000, the day following the Presidential election, the Florida Division of Elections reported that petitioner Bush had received 2,909,135 votes and respondent Gore had received 2,907,351 votes, a margin of 1,784 for Governor Bush. Because Governor Bush's margin of victory was less than one-half of one percent of the votes cast, an automatic machine recount was conducted under section 102.141(4) of the Florida Election Code. This recount resulted in a substantially smaller margin of victory for Bush. Respondent Gore then sought manual recounts in four counties: Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. The Florida Supreme Court enjoined certification until November 17, later directed inclusion of completed manual-recount results from Volusia and Palm Beach, and ordered Miami-Dade to finish its recount by November 22. On November 21 the court set a November 26 deadline for all manual recounts and for certification by the Secretary of State. On November 26 the Secretary certified Bush the winner by 537 votes. Gore filed a contest action in Leon County Circuit Court under section 102.168 alleging rejection of a sufficient number of legal votes to place the outcome in doubt. The circuit court denied relief. The Florida Supreme Court reversed in part on December 8, 2000, ordering a manual recount of all undervotes statewide under a clear-indication-of-voter-intent standard and directing inclusion of 215 net votes from Palm Beach County and 168 net votes from Miami-Dade County. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on December 9 after staying the Florida Supreme Court's order and heard argument on December 11. The dispute involved roughly 45,000 undervote ballots that machines had not tabulated plus partial manual counts already performed in three counties.
View caseCourts examine whether the Constitution textually commits the issue to another branch, whether judicially manageable standards exist, whether resolution would require an initial policy determination, and whether adjudication would express disrespect for coordinate branches or risk multifarious pronouncements.
Federal courts lack judicially manageable standards for deciding how much partisan advantage is too much, and the Constitution commits districting to state legislatures and Congress rather than the judiciary.
No. Equal-protection challenges alleging malapportionment are justiciable because population equality supplies a clear, judicially manageable standard and no textually demonstrable commitment bars review.
Yes. The Constitution's assignment of the sole power to try all impeachments to the Senate encompasses procedural choices such as delegating evidence-taking to a committee, rendering challenges to those procedures nonjusticiable.
Claims that a state no longer maintains a republican form of government are nonjusticiable because the Clause commits enforcement to the political branches rather than the courts.