Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997)

Raines v. Byrd

No. 96-1671

Argued May 27, 1997
Decided June 26, 1997
521 U.S. 811

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Syllabus

Appellees, Members of the 104th Congress, voted "nay" when Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act (Act), which gives the President the authority to cancel certain spending and tax benefit measures after he has signed them into law. The day after the Act went into effect, they filed suit against appellants, Executive Branch officials, challenging the Act’s constitutionality. The District Court denied appellants’ motion to dismiss, finding that appellees’ claim that the Act diluted their Article I voting power was sufficient to confer Article III standing; and that their claim was ripe, even though the President had not yet used the Act’s cancellation authority, because they found themselves in a position of unanticipated and unwelcome subservience to the President before and after their votes on appropriations bills. The court then granted appellees summary judgment, holding that the Act violated the Presentment Clause, Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, and constituted an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President.

Held: Appellees lack standing to bring this suit. Pp. 818-830.

(a) The federal courts have jurisdiction over this dispute only if it is a case or controversy. Art. III, § 2. In order to meet the standing element of the case or controversy requirement, appellees must allege a personal injury that is particularized, concrete, and otherwise judicially cognizable. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561; Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751. This Court insists on strict compliance with the jurisdictional standing requirement, see, e.g., id. at 752, and its standing inquiry is especially rigorous when reaching the merits of a dispute would force it to decide the constitutionality of an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government. Pp. 818-820.

(b) This Court has never had occasion to rule on the legislative standing question presented here. Appellees are not helped by Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496, 512-514, in which the Court held that a Congressman’s challenge to the constitutionality of his exclusion from the House of Representatives presented an Article III case or controversy. Appellees have not been singled out for specially unfavorable treatment as opposed to other Members of their respective bodies, but claim that the Act causes a type of institutional injury which damages all Members of Congress equally. And their claim is based on a loss of political power, not loss of something to which they are personally entitled, such as their seats as Members of Congress after their constituents elected them. Pp. 820-821.

(c) Appellees’ claim also does not fall within the Court’s holding in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, the one case in which standing has been upheld for legislators claiming an institutional injury. There, the Court held that state legislators who had been locked in a tie vote that would have defeated the State’s ratification of a proposed federal constitutional amendment, and who alleged that their votes were nullified when the Lieutenant Governor broke the tie by casting his vote for ratification, had "a plain, direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes." Id. at 438. In contrast, appellees have not alleged that they voted for a specific bill, that there were sufficient votes to pass the bill, and that the bill was nonetheless deemed defeated. In the vote on the Act, their votes were given full effect; they simply lost that vote. To uphold standing here would require a drastic extension of Coleman, even accepting appellees’ argument that the Act has changed the "meaning" and "effectiveness" of their vote on appropriations bills, for there is a vast difference between the level of vote nullification at issue in Coleman and the abstract dilution of institutional power appellees allege. Pp. 821-826.

(d) Historical practice cuts against appellees’ position as well. Several episodes in our history show that in analogous confrontations between one or both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch, no suit was brought on the basis of claimed injury to official authority or power. If appellees’ claim were sustained, presumably several Presidents would have had standing to challenge the Tenure of Office Act, which prevented the removal of a presidential appointee without Congress’ consent; the Attorney General could have challenged the one-House veto provision because it rendered his authority provisional rather than final; President Ford could have challenged the Federal Election Campaign Act’s appointment provisions which were struck down in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1; and a Member of Congress could have challenged the validity of President Coolidge’s pocket veto that was sustained in The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655. While a system granting such standing would not be irrational, our Constitution’s regime contemplates a more restrictive role for Article III courts. See United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 192 (Powell, J., concurring). Pp. 826-829.

(e) Some importance must be attached to the fact that appellees have not been authorized to represent their respective Houses in this action, and indeed both Houses actively oppose their suit. In addition, the conclusion reached here neither deprives Members of Congress of an adequate remedy -- since they may repeal the Act or exempt appropriations bills from its reach -- nor forecloses the Act from constitutional challenge by someone who suffers judicially cognizable injury resulting from it. P. 829-830.

956 F.Supp. 25 vacated and remanded.

REHNQUIST, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O’CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which GINSBURG, J., joined, post, p. 830. STEVENS, J., post, p. 835, and BREYER, J., post, p. 838. filed dissenting opinions.