Also known as: textual demonstrable constitutional commitment · Baker v. Carr factor · political question doctrine
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A criterion for identifying nonjusticiable political questions that exists when the Constitution expressly or impliedly assigns final authority over an issue to Congress or the President.
Timothy Tang and other voters sued state officials over a new legislative map that allegedly diluted their votes by combining urban and rural districts. The court examined whether the Constitution textually committed apportionment disputes to Congress or the states alone. Finding no such assignment, the court proceeded to apply equal protection standards and denied the motion to dismiss.
Tara Tran challenged a one-house veto that canceled her deportation suspension. The court checked whether the Constitution textually committed all questions about legislative procedure to Congress without judicial oversight. No such commitment barred review, so the court reached the merits and invalidated the veto mechanism.
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 caseTessa Takahashi sued a member of Congress for sex discrimination after losing her staff position. The court asked whether the Constitution textually committed employment disputes within congressional offices to the legislative branch alone. No such commitment existed, allowing the suit to proceed on the constitutional claim.
Otto E. Passman represented Louisiana's Fifth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. On February 1, 1974, he hired Shirley Davis as a deputy administrative assistant at an annual salary of $18,000, with an expected promotion to administrative assistant at $32,000 upon the retirement of the current assistant. Davis was not hired through the competitive service. Passman was defeated in the 1976 primary election, and his tenure in office ended January 3, 1977. On or about July 31, 1974, Passman terminated Davis's employment by letter. Although he stated that she was able, energetic, and a very hard worker, he concluded that it was essential that the understudy to his administrative assistant be a man. The letter offered continued pay through July 31 plus an extra month of vacation and noted that secretaries of her ability were in demand in Monroe, Louisiana. Davis filed suit against Passman in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. She alleged that the termination discriminated against her on the basis of sex in violation of the United States Constitution and the Fifth Amendment. She sought damages in the form of backpay along with equitable relief including reinstatement, promotion, and salary increase. She invoked jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331(a) on the ground that the matter in controversy exceeded $10,000 and arose under the Constitution. Passman moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), contending among other things that the law afforded no private right of action for the claim. The district court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint, ruling that Davis had no private right of action. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed that dismissal. The Fifth Circuit sitting en banc then reversed the panel. It held that no right of action may be implied from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. It also held that the proposed damage remedy was not constitutionally compelled. The Supreme Court granted certiorari. Since Passman was no longer a Member of Congress by the time the case reached the Supreme Court, equitable relief such as reinstatement was unavailable.
View caseTori Taylor sued after the House refused to seat her despite winning election. The court determined whether the Constitution textually committed the power to judge member qualifications exclusively to the House. Finding such a commitment, the court dismissed the case as a political question.
In November 1966 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was duly elected from New York's Eighteenth Congressional District to serve in the 90th Congress. During the preceding Congress a Special Subcommittee on Contracts of the Committee on House Administration investigated expenditures of the Committee on Education and Labor. The subcommittee issued a report concluding that Powell had deceived House authorities about travel expenses and that illegal salary payments had been made to his wife at his direction. The report also found that Powell met the standing qualifications of age, citizenship, and residence. When the 90th Congress organized in January 1967 the House adopted House Resolution No. 1 by a vote of 363 to 65. The resolution appointed a nine-member Select Committee to inquire into Powell's qualifications and alleged misconduct. Powell appeared before the committee but, on advice of counsel, limited his testimony to the three standing qualifications and refused to answer questions about other matters. The Select Committee issued a report finding that Powell met the standing qualifications yet recommending that he be seated, censured, fined $40,000, and deprived of seniority. On March 1, 1967, the House rejected a motion to vote on that recommendation. The House then adopted an amendment calling for exclusion by a vote of 248 to 176 and passed House Resolution No. 278 by a vote of 307 to 116, thereby excluding Powell and declaring the seat vacant. Powell and thirteen voters from his district filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Speaker John W. McCormack, four other House members, and the Clerk, Sergeant at Arms, and Doorkeeper. The complaint alleged that House Resolution No. 278 violated the Constitution because Powell satisfied the standing qualifications and requested declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and mandamus to compel seating and payment of salary. The district court dismissed the complaint for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals affirmed on different grounds, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. While the case was pending the 90th Congress ended. Powell was reelected in November 1968 and seated in the 91st Congress under a resolution that imposed a $25,000 fine. Respondents filed a suggestion of mootness, but Powell's claim for back salary from the period of exclusion remained unresolved.
View caseTiffany Torres challenged a district map that packed Democratic voters into one district. The court first checked for a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of redistricting to state legislatures. No such commitment barred review, but the court still dismissed because no manageable standards existed.
In 2000, the census showed that Pennsylvania was entitled to only 19 Representatives in Congress, a decrease of 2 from its previous delegation. Pennsylvania's General Assembly, controlled by Republicans who also held the Governor's office, undertook the task of drawing a new districting map. Prominent national Republican figures pressured the Assembly to adopt a partisan plan as punishment for Democratic redistricting elsewhere. On January 3, 2002, the General Assembly passed its plan, signed into law as Act 1. Registered Democrats Richard Vieth, Norma Jean Vieth, and Susan Furey brought suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Act 1 created malapportioned districts and constituted a political gerrymander in violation of Article I and the Equal Protection Clause. A three-judge panel dismissed the gerrymandering claim but allowed the apportionment claim to proceed. After trial, the court ruled for plaintiffs on apportionment and retained jurisdiction pending a remedial plan. Governor Schweiker signed Act 34, a remedial plan enacted by the General Assembly, on April 18, 2002. Plaintiffs moved to impose their own remedial districts, arguing Act 34 was both malapportioned and an unconstitutional gerrymander. The District Court denied the motion, finding the new districts properly apportioned and rejecting the gerrymandering claim for the reasons stated earlier. Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their Act 34 gerrymandering claim, and the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The complaint alleged that the districts were meandering and irregular, ignored traditional redistricting criteria solely for partisan advantage, and that the plan was designed to maximize Republican seats. The District Court dismissed the political gerrymandering claim for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted.
View caseTriumph Manufacturing and its shareholders sued over secret CIA funding that they claimed violated the Appropriations Clause. The court examined whether the Constitution textually committed oversight of such expenditures to Congress alone. Finding a commitment, the court dismissed the case as nonjusticiable.
Richardson, a United States taxpayer, brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado challenging the constitutionality of the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. He alleged that the Act's provisions permitting the Agency to account for its expenditures solely on the certificate of the Director of Central Intelligence violate the Statement and Account Clause of Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution. Richardson claimed injury as a taxpayer because the challenged law prevented him from learning how Congress spends public money and from taking steps to correct what he believed to be illegal and unconstitutional uses of public funds. In 1967 Richardson wrote to the Government Printing Office requesting documents published by the Government in compliance with the constitutional clause. The Fiscal Service of the Bureau of Accounts of the Department of the Treasury replied by sending copies of the Combined Statement of Receipts, Expenditures, and Balances of the United States Government along with monthly and daily reports. Richardson then wrote again, quoting part of the CIA Act and asking whether the statute cast reflection upon the authenticity of the Treasury's Statement and how he could receive further information on CIA expenditures. The Bureau replied that it had no other available information. Richardson next asserted that the CIA Act was repugnant to the Constitution and requested that the Treasury Department seek an opinion of the Attorney General, but the Department declined. Richardson's complaint asked the court to issue a permanent injunction enjoining the defendants from publishing their Combined Statement and representing it as the fulfillment of the constitutional mandate until the statement fully complies. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that Richardson lacked standing and that the claim presented a nonjusticiable political question. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that Richardson had standing as a taxpayer under Flast v. Cohen and that the claim was justiciable. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseIt supplies the first of six independent grounds for finding a political question. When the Constitution textually commits an issue to Congress or the President, courts must stay out even if other Baker factors are absent.
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Yes. The Constitution textually commits the sole power to try impeachments to the Senate, so challenges to Senate impeachment procedures present a textually demonstrable commitment that renders the dispute nonjusticiable.
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The textual-commitment factor looks only to whether the Constitution assigns final authority to another branch. The manageable-standards factor asks whether courts possess judicially discoverable criteria even when no textual assignment exists.
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No. Only when the Constitution itself textually assigns the precise issue to Congress does the factor apply. Ordinary statutory or constitutional claims against congressional action remain justiciable absent that assignment.
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