Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05232/USCOURTS-caDC-06-05232-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 9, 2007 Decided May 29, 2007

No. 06-5232

PUBLIC CITIZEN,

APPELLANT

V.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 06cv00523)

Allison M. Zieve argued the cause for appellant. With her

on the briefs were Adina H. Rosenbaum, Brian Wolfman, and

Scott L. Nelson.

Martha Jane Perkins was on the brief for amici curiae

Representatives Henry R. Waxman, et al. in support of appellant

urging reversal.

Alisa B. Klein, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued

the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Peter D.

Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S.

Attorney, Jonathan F. Cohn, Deputy Assistant Attorney

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General, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence,

Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Michael F. Altschul and Helgi C. Walker were on the brief

for amicus curiae CTIA-The Wireless Association in support of

appellee.

Before: TATEL and GARLAND, Circuit Judges, and

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

EDWARDS.

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge: Article I of the United

States Constitution requires that before proposed legislation may

“become[] a Law,” U.S. CONST. art. I, § 7, cl. 2, “(1) a bill

containing its exact text [must be] approved by a majority of the

Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate [must]

approve[] precisely the same text; and (3) that text [must be]

signed into law by the President,” Clinton v. City of New York,

524 U.S. 417, 448 (1998). Public Citizen, a not-for-profit

consumer advocacy organization, filed suit in District Court

claiming that the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Pub. L. No.

109-171, 120 Stat. 4 (2006) (“DRA” or “Act”), is invalid

because the bill that was presented to the President did not first

pass both chambers of Congress in the exact same form. In

particular, Public Citizen contends that the statute’s enactment

did not comport with the bicameral passage requirement of

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, because the version of

the legislation that was presented to the House contained a

clerk’s error with respect to one term, so the House and Senate

voted on slightly different versions of the bill and the President

signed the version passed by the Senate. Public Citizen asserts

that it is irrelevant that the Speaker of the House and the

President pro tempore of the Senate both signed a version of the

proposed legislation identical to the version signed by the

President. Nor does it matter, Public Citizen argues, that the

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congressional leaders’ signatures attest that indistinguishable

legislative text passed both houses. 

The District Court held that Public Citizen’s bicameralism

claim is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s decision in

Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892). See Public

Citizen v. Clerk, U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 451 F. Supp. 2d 109

(D.D.C. 2006). In that case, the Court held that the judiciary

must treat the attestations of “the two houses, through their

presiding officers” as “conclusive evidence that [a bill] was

passed by Congress.” Marshall Field, 143 U.S. 672-73. Under

Marshall Field, a bill signed by the leaders of the House and

Senate – an attested “enrolled bill” – establishes that Congress

passed the text included therein “according to the forms of the

Constitution,” and it “should be deemed complete and

unimpeachable.” Id. at 672-73. Recognizing that Marshall

Field’s “enrolled bill rule” prohibited it from questioning the

congressional pedigree of the bill signed by the Speaker and

President pro tempore, the District Court dismissed Public

Citizen’s complaint and denied its motion for summary

judgment. Public Citizen, 451 F. Supp. 2d 109. 

Public Citizen has appealed, arguing that while Marshall

Field may prohibit the impeachment of an enrolled bill by

reference to congressional journals, the decision does not bar a

court from considering other evidence extrinsic to an enrolled

bill. Public Citizen claims further that even if Marshall Field

was not so restricted as originally decided, subsequent decisions

of the Court have narrowed the enrolled bill rule. Appellee and

CTIA – the Wireless Association (“CTIA”), appearing as amicus

curiae, urge affirmance and contend that Public Citizen lacks

standing to challenge the DRA. 

We agree with the District Court that the enrolled bill rule

of Marshall Field controls the disposition of this case. We

therefore affirm the judgment of the District Court. We find it

unnecessary to determine whether Public Citizen has standing

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to bring suit, because we conclude that the Marshall Field rule

of dismissal “represents the sort of ‘threshold question’ [that]

. . . may be resolved before addressing jurisdiction.” Tenet v.

Doe, 544 U.S. 1, 6 n.4 (2005). 

I. BACKGROUND

A. “Engrossed Bills” and “Enrolled Bills” in the House and

Senate

Congress has established specific procedures governing

passage of a bill: 

[1] Every bill . . . in each House of Congress shall, when

such bill . . . passes either House, be printed, and such

printed copy shall be called the engrossed bill . . . .

[2] Said engrossed bill . . . shall be signed by the Clerk of

the House or the Secretary of the Senate, and shall be sent

to the other House, and in that form shall be dealt with by

that House and its officers, and, if passed, returned signed

by said Clerk or Secretary. 

[3] When such bill . . . shall have passed both Houses, it

shall be printed and shall then be called the enrolled bill, . . .

signed by the presiding officers of both Houses and sent to

the President of the United States. 

1 U.S.C. § 106. An “engrossed bill” is thus one that has passed

one chamber of Congress, while an “enrolled bill” has passed

both the House and the Senate. 

B. Public Citizen’s Challenge to the DRA

On February 8, 2006, President Bush signed a budget bill

known as the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. In ten titles, the

DRA amends a variety of familiar statutes, including the Federal

Deposit Insurance Act, the Communications Act of 1934, and

the Social Security Act. The provisions of the DRA are

sweeping: the Act, inter alia, effects extensive changes to

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Medicare and Medicaid laws, provides relief for victims of

Hurricane Katrina, creates a program through which households

may obtain coupons to defray the cost of digital-to-analog

converter boxes for their televisions, and, significantly, for

purposes of this law suit, amends the U.S. Code to increase the

filing fee for civil actions in federal district courts from $250 to

$350.

Approximately six weeks after the President signed the

DRA, Public Citizen filed a complaint against the Clerk of the

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (“Clerk”),

arguing that as an organization that routinely files civil suits, it

anticipated having to pay the $100 fee increase on a regular

basis. Public Citizen asked the District Court to declare the Act

unconstitutional and compel the Clerk to maintain the $250

filing fee. 

The facts in this case are straightforward and largely

undisputed. Nonetheless, on review of a motion to dismiss, we

“must treat the complaint’s factual allegations as true . . . and

must grant [Public Citizen] the benefit of all inferences that can

be derived from the facts alleged.” Holy Land Found. for Relief

& Dev. v. Ashcroft, 333 F.3d 156, 165 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (internal

quotation marks omitted). We will therefore recite the facts

underlying the complaint as they have been presented by Public

Citizen.

According to the complaint, in the Fall of 2005, the House

and Senate passed different versions of a budget bill referred to

as S. 1932. To iron out the differences, the legislation was sent

to a conference committee. The committee produced a

conference report which failed to pass the Senate. Shortly

thereafter the Senate passed an amended version of S. 1932

wherein § 5101 specified a 13-month duration of Medicare

payments for certain durable medical equipment. However,

when the Senate clerk transmitted the engrossed S. 1932 to the

House, he mistakenly changed § 5101 of the bill to reflect a 36-

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month duration of payments for durable medical equipment

rather than the 13-month duration actually approved by the

Senate. The House voted on this engrossed bill, including the

erroneous duration figure. Because the legislation originated in

the Senate, the House returned it to the Senate for enrollment.

The Senate clerk, recognizing the transcription error in the

engrossed bill, altered the text of the enrolled bill so that it

included a 13-month rather than a 36-month duration. The

version of the DRA signed by the presiding officers contains the

13-month figure. Thus, since the 13-month duration term in the

enrolled bill passed the Senate but not the House, the President

signed legislation that did not actually pass both houses of

Congress in precisely the same form. 

After filing its complaint, Public Citizen moved for

summary judgment. The Clerk lodged a motion to dismiss the

case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The

District Court denied Public Citizen’s motion and granted

dismissal, concluding that even if it accepted Public Citizen’s

allegations as true, the bicameralism challenge still “must fail”

under the enrolled bill rule of Marshall Field. Public Citizen,

451 F. Supp. 2d at 128. Public Citizen now appeals the

dismissal of its complaint and denial of its motion for summary

judgment.

 II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

The District Court dismissed Public Citizen’s complaint for

failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, see

FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6), and denied its motion for summary

judgment, see FED.R.CIV. P. 56. A dismissal for failure to state

a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is reviewed de novo – meaning that

this court applies the same decisional principles as the District

Courts. See, e.g., Kingman Park Civic Ass’n v. Williams, 348

F.3d 1033, 1039-40 (D.C. Cir. 2003). A denial of a motion for

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summary judgment typically is not a final order, so it is

ordinarily not appealable. See, e.g., Chaplaincy of Full Gospel

Churches v. England, 454 F.3d 290, 296 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

However, an order denying a motion for summary judgment

may be reviewed on appeal “where it is accompanied by a final

order disposing of all issues before the district court.” JonesHamilton Co. v. Beazer Materials & Servs., Inc., 973 F.2d 688,

694 n.2 (9th Cir. 1992). We review a denial of summary

judgment de novo. “The test to be applied in reviewing the

grant or denial of a summary judgment motion is that summary

judgment is proper only when there is no genuine issue of any

material fact or when viewing the evidence and the inferences

which may be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the

adverse party, the movant is clearly entitled to prevail as a

matter of law.” Pomerantz v. County of Los Angeles, 674 F.2d

1288, 1290 (9th Cir. 1982) (internal quotation marks omitted).

B. Standing and Other Threshold Issues

The Clerk and CTIA contend that Public Citizen cannot

meet the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing.

Appellee’s Br. at 30-32; Br. of Amicus Curiae at 19-27; see

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc.,

528 U.S. 167, 180-81 (2000) (describing Article III standing

requirements). In particular, CTIA argues that, “in addition to

requiring injury-in-fact and causation, Article III obliges the

plaintiff to establish that the alleged injury is judicially

redressable. Because the putatively unconstitutional provision

of the DRA can be severed from the concededly valid remainder

of the Act, Public Citizen’s grievance concerning increased

filing fees simply would not be redressed by a favorable

decision in this appeal.” Br. of Amicus Curiae at 4 (citation

omitted). The Clerk concurs in this view, Appellee’s Br. at 30,

but argues in the alternative that we may affirm without

addressing standing, because Marshall Field erects a threshold

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barrier to judicial inquiry, id. at 30 n.7. We agree that we may

affirm without reaching the issue of standing.

In Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, the

Supreme Court held “that Article III jurisdiction is always an

antecedent question” to be answered prior to any merits inquiry.

523 U.S. 83, 101 (1998). The Court emphasized that in order to

dismiss a claim for failure “to state a cause of action” a court

must have “power to adjudicate the case.” Id. at 89. Therefore,

such a dismissal cannot be issued “before resolving a dispute”

concerning jurisdiction. Id. at 92. The Court noted, however,

that in some cases involving “extraordinary procedural

postures,” id. at 98, federal courts have permissibly resolved the

merits of a dispute without first addressing an outstanding

jurisdictional question, see id. at 98-101. The Court added that

some of these cases “must be acknowledged to have diluted the

absolute purity of the rule that Article III jurisdiction is always

an antecedent question.” Id. at 101; see also id. at 110-11

(“[T]he Court’s opinion should not be read as cataloging an

exhaustive list of circumstances under which federal courts may

exercise judgment in reserv[ing] difficult questions of . . .

jurisdiction when the case alternatively could be resolved on the

merits in favor of the same party.”) (O’Connor, J., concurring)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

Further diluting the “purity of the rule that Article III

jurisdiction is always an antecedent question,” the Court in

Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574 (1999),

observed that 

[w]hile Steel Co. reasoned that subject-matter

jurisdiction necessarily precedes a ruling on the merits, the

same principle does not dictate a sequencing of

jurisdictional issues. “[A] court that dismisses on . . . nonmerits grounds such as . . . personal jurisdiction, before

finding subject-matter jurisdiction, makes no assumption of

law-declaring power that violates the separation of powers

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principles underlying . . . Steel Company.” It is hardly

novel for a federal court to choose among threshold grounds

for denying audience to a case on the merits. Thus, as the

Court observed in Steel Co., district courts do not overstep

Article III limits when they decline jurisdiction of state-law

claims on discretionary grounds without determining

whether those claims fall within their pendent jurisdiction,

or abstain . . . without deciding whether the parties present

a case or controversy. . . .

 Id. at 584-85 (internal citations omitted); see also Seale v. INS,

323 F.3d 150, 155 (1st Cir. 2003) (“Despite sweeping language

. . . Steel Co. does not, in all instances, create an absolute rule

against bypassing questions of a jurisdictional nature.”).

Doubts about Steel Co.’s reach were significantly quelled

in Tenet when the Court held that a federal court is not obliged

to decide jurisdictional issues before certain nonjurisdictional

“rule[s] designed not merely to defeat the asserted claims, but to

preclude judicial inquiry.” Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n.4. In Tenet,

the Court held that the Totten v. United States, 92 U.S. 105

(1875), rule of dismissal may be addressed before finding

jurisdiction. Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n.4. Totten involved a suit

brought by “a self-styled Civil War spy [against] . . . the United

States to enforce its obligations under their secret espionage

agreement.” Id. at 3. The Court concluded that “public policy

forb[ids]” such a suit, id., since “[e]ven a small chance that some

court will order disclosure of a source’s identity could well

impair intelligence gathering and cause sources to close up like

a clam,” id. at 11 (internal quotation marks omitted). When two

alleged Cold War spies brought a similar suit, the Tenet Court

held that “the Totten rule of dismissal . . . represents the sort of

‘threshold question’ [that] . . . may be resolved before

addressing jurisdiction,” explaining that “[i]t would be

inconsistent with the unique and categorical nature of the Totten

bar – a rule designed not merely to defeat the asserted claims,

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but to preclude judicial inquiry – to first allow discovery or

other proceedings in order to resolve the jurisdictional

question.” Id. at 6 n.4.

Justice Scalia joined the majority but wrote separately to

emphasize his belief that Tenet does not broaden Steel Co. He

argued that when the majority opinion

describes “the unique and categorical nature of the Totten

bar . . . ,” it is assuredly not describing the mere everyday

absence of a cause of action. As applied today, the bar of

Totten is a jurisdictional one.

Of course even if it were not, given the squarely

applicable precedent of Totten, the absence of a cause of

action is so clear that [the] claims are frivolous –

establishing another jurisdictional ground for dismissal that

the Steel Co. majority opinion acknowledges.

Id. at 12 (Scalia, J., concurring) (internal citation omitted).

Although the majority opinion does not say explicitly whether

Totten erects a “jurisdictional” bar, it does state that the rule

stems from public policy concerns without mentioning Article

III limitations. More significantly, the Tenet Court phrases its

holding in terms that undermine Justice Scalia’s contention:

“[T]he Totten rule of dismissal . . . represents the sort of

‘threshold question’ [that] . . . may be resolved before

addressing jurisdiction.” Id. at 6 n.4 (emphasis added). 

Any remaining doubt as to whether a federal court may, in

appropriate circumstances, dismiss a case on prudential grounds

prior to establishing its jurisdiction was put to rest in Sinochem

International Co. v. Malaysia International Shipping Corp., 127

S. Ct. 1184 (2007). In Sinochem, the Supreme Court applied

Tenet to another rule of dismissal “designed . . . to preclude

judicial inquiry.” Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n.4. The Court held that

“a district court has discretion to respond at once to a . . . forum

non conveniens plea, and need not take up first any other

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threshold objection [such as] . . . whether it has authority to

adjudicate the cause.” Sinochem, 127 S. Ct. at 1188. Since

dismissal pursuant to the forum non conveniens doctrine – like

a Totten dismissal – “den[ies] audience to a case on the merits,”

the Court reasoned, it “does not entail any assumption . . . of

substantive ‘law-declaring power.’” Id. at 1191-93 (quoting

Ruhrgas, 526 U.S. at 584-85). No one would contend that forum

non conveniens constitutes a jurisdictional ground for dismissal.

Indeed, the Sinochem decision refers to a district court’s

“discretion to” dismiss pursuant to the doctrine. Id. at 1188.

Sinochem thus firmly establishes that certain non-merits,

nonjurisdictional issues may be addressed preliminarily, because

“‘[j]urisdiction is vital only if the court proposes to issue a

judgment on the merits.’” Id. at 1191-92 (quoting Intec USA,

LLC v. Engle, 467 F.3d 1038, 1041 (7th Cir. 2006)).

There are two lines of analysis pursuant to which it might

be argued that Marshall Field’s enrolled bill rule creates a

“jurisdictional” bar. First, because the Court based its holding

in part upon separation of powers concerns, see Marshall Field,

143 U.S. at 673, the rule could be viewed as an application of

the political question doctrine which is derived from Article III’s

“controversy” requirement, Massachusetts v. EPA, 127 S. Ct.

1438, 1452 (2007). See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 214-15

(1962) (describing Marshall Field as involving considerations

similar to those in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939),

which were “committed to congressional resolution” and based

on “criteria of decision that necessarily escape[] the judicial

grasp”); Metzenbaum v. FERC, 675 F.2d 1282, 1287 (D.C. Cir.

1982) (per curiam) (citing Marshall Field as an application of

the political question doctrine); see also United States v. Sitka,

845 F.2d 43, 46 (2d Cir. 1988) (“Another doctrine closely

related to – if not inherent in – the political question doctrine is

the so-called ‘enrolled bill rule.’”); United States v. Stahl, 792

F.2d 1438, 1440-41 (9th Cir. 1986) (characterizing extension of

the enrolled bill rule as an application of the political question

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doctrine). But see INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 943 (1983)

(describing Marshall Field as “address[ing] and resolv[ing] the

question whether” an attested enrolled bill does not become a

law if it has not in fact been passed by Congress); cf. Vander

Jagt v. O’Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1170 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (clarifying

prudential nature of abstention in case challenging committee

seat distribution). Second, because the enrolled bill rule

foreordains the failure of Public Citizen’s challenge, Marshall

Field also could be seen as depriving the courts of subject matter

jurisdiction with respect to claims that are “so . . . foreclosed by

prior decisions of [the Supreme] Court . . . as not to involve a

federal controversy.” Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 89 (internal

quotation marks omitted). 

In any event, the Marshall Field rule most certainly falls

within the ambit of Tenet and Sinochem. The District Court

“assume[d] without deciding that [the Clerk’s] motion to dismiss

. . . [was] properly made pursuant to [Rule] 12(b)(6),” since it

concluded that “the label applied d[id] not affect [its] analysis or

outcome.” Public Citizen, 451 F. Supp. 2d at 113 n.9. But the

enrolled bill rule does not authorize a merits dismissal for failure

to state a claim. Rather, like the Totten rule of dismissal and

forum non conveniens, the enrolled bill rule is “designed not

merely to defeat the asserted claims, but to preclude judicial

inquiry,” Tenet, 544 U.S. at 6 n.4. Where an attested enrolled

bill exists, a court must dismiss prior to adjudicating a

bicameralism challenge, “‘denying audience to [the] case on the

merits,’” Sinochem, 127 S. Ct. at 1191 (quoting Ruhrgas, 526

U.S. at 585). At a minimum, the Marshall Field rule is thus a

non-merits threshold ground for dismissal. We therefore need

not decide whether the enrolled bill rule creates a jurisdictional

bar. Nor is it necessary for us to determine whether Public

Citizen lacks standing. Accordingly, we will proceed directly

to Marshall Field dismissal.

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C. The Enrolled Bill Rule

1. Marshall Field Squarely Applies 

In Marshall Field, importers protesting duties levied against

them sought to have the Tariff Act of 1890 declared

unconstitutional. 143 U.S. at 662-69. According to the

importers, even though the Speaker of the House and the

President of the Senate had endorsed the bill as having passed

the bodies over which they presided, “it [was] shown by the

Congressional record of proceedings, reports of committees of

each house, reports of committees of conference, and other

papers printed by authority of Congress” that part of the bill

passed was missing in the version enrolled. Id. at 668-69. The

importers argued that the Journal Clause, see U.S.CONST. art. I,

§ 5, cl. 3 (“Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings,

and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as

may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays

of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the

Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.”),

enshrines congressional journals – not the enrolled bill – as “the

best, if not conclusive, evidence upon the issue as to whether a

bill was, in fact, passed by the two houses of Congress.”

Marshall Field, 143 U.S. at 670.

The Court rejected this interpretation of the bicameral

passage requirement, holding that the object of the Journal

Clause is to ensure transparency in legislative activities, not to

“prescribe the mode in which the fact of the original passage of

a bill by the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be

authenticated, or preclude Congress from adopting any mode to

that end which its wisdom suggests.” Id. at 670-71.

Recognizing that Congress had long chosen signing of the

enrolled bill by the presiding members of both houses as its

method of authentication, the Court held that “the judicial

department [must] act upon that assurance, and . . . accept, as

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having passed Congress, all bills authenticated in the manner

stated.” Id. at 671-72. 

The Marshall Field Court rested this conclusion upon two

rationales. First, the Court reasoned by reference to public

policy: 

[W]e cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must

result if this court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the

Constitution, to declare that an enrolled bill, on which

depend public and private interests of vast magnitude, and

which has been authenticated by the signatures of the

presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and by the

approval of the President, and been deposited in the public

archives, as an act of Congress, was not in fact passed by

the House of Representatives and the Senate, and therefore

did not become a law.

Id. at 670. 

Better, far better, that a provision should occasionally find

its way into the statute through mistake, or even fraud, than

that every act . . . should at any and all times be liable to be

put in issue and impeached . . . . Such a state of uncertainty

in the statute laws of the land would lead to mischiefs

absolutely intolerable. 

Id. at 675 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 676.

Second, the Court based its holding on separation of powers

concerns, citing “the respect due to a coördinate branch of the

government.” Id. at 673; see also id. at 676-77 (explaining that

“the spectacle of examination of [congressional proceedings by

the courts]” would “subordinate[] the legislature and disregard[]

that coequal position in our system of the three departments of

government” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

The Court crafted a clear rule: “[I]t is not competent for [a

party raising a bicameralism challenge] to show, from the

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journals of either house, from the reports of committees or from

other documents printed by authority of Congress, that [an]

enrolled bill” differs from that actually passed by Congress. Id.

at 680. The only “evidence upon which a court may act when

the issue is made as to whether a bill . . . asserted to have

become a law, was or was not passed by Congress” is an

enrolled act attested to by declaration of “the two houses,

through their presiding officers.” Id. at 670, 672. An enrolled

bill, “thus attested,” “is conclusive evidence that it was passed

by Congress.” Id. at 672-73. “[T]he enrollment itself is the

record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is . . . .” Id. at

675 (internal quotation marks omitted).

In the case at bar, the record contains a copy of the DRA

bearing the signatures of then Speaker of the House of

Representatives Dennis Hastert and President pro tempore of the

Senate Ted Stevens. Where such an attested enrolled bill exists,

Marshall Field requires “the judicial department to act upon that

assurance, and to accept [the bill] as having passed Congress.”

Id. at 672. Even if “the Congressional record of proceedings,

reports of committees of each house, reports of committees of

conference, and other papers printed by authority of Congress,”

id. at 668-69, indicate that the House voted to enact a 36-month

duration of Medicare payments for certain durable medical

equipment while the Senate passed a 13-month figure, the courts

are barred from considering this extrinsic evidence. The District

Court therefore correctly dismissed Public Citizen’s complaint

pursuant to the enrolled bill rule.

2. Public Citizen’s Attempts to Distinguish and Narrow

Marshall Field

Public Citizen admits that the importers in Marshall Field

“offered exhibits other than the journals, such as excerpts from

the Congressional Record” and acknowledges the Court’s

references to “reports of committees [and] other documents

printed by authority of [C]ongress.” Appellant’s Br. at 24-25.

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But Public Citizen argues that since the importers primarily

relied upon congressional journals and “journals are the only

evidence discussed” at length in the opinion, the Marshall Field

Court’s expansive statements regarding the conclusive nature of

the enrolled bill constitute “dicta going beyond what was

necessary to decide the case” and the decision should be read to

hold only that as between journals and an enrolled bill, the

enrolled bill is the superior evidence. Id. at 21-25. 

We easily reject this attempt to distinguish Marshall Field

as a case concerned solely with congressional journals. As

noted above, the Court first held that “the enrollment itself is the

record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is,” and it

cannot be impeached by other materials. Marshall Field, 143

U.S. at 675 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court then

confirmed that “it is not competent for the appellants to show,

from the journals of either house, from the reports of committees

or from other documents printed by authority of Congress, that

the enrolled bill . . . as finally passed, contained a section that

does not appear in the enrolled act.” Id. at 680 (emphasis

added). 

Nothing in the Marshall Field opinion purports to limit

application of the enrolled bill rule to journal-based challenges.

And neither of the Court’s rationales applies solely to

impeachment by journals. No less “uncertainty in the statute

laws” upon which “depend public and private interests of vast

magnitude,” id. at 670, 675 (internal quotation marks omitted),

would result from allowing collateral attack of the enrolled bill

by congressional documents other than journals. And “the

spectacle of examination of journals by [the courts]” no more

“subordinates the legislature,” id. at 676-77 (internal quotation

marks and emphasis omitted), than does inspection of other

materials. Marshall Field’s plain language and justification

cannot be read to create a rule of dismissal limited to the claims

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of plaintiffs who rely primarily upon journals to rebut an attested

enrolled bill. 

Public Citizen also contends that even if Marshall Field was

not so restricted as originally decided, subsequent precedent has

narrowed its holding. We view the legal landscape quite

differently. First, the Supreme Court has applied the enrolled

bill rule, see Harwood v. Wentworth, 162 U.S. 547, 562 (1896)

(taking attested enrolled bill of Arizona legislature “to have been

enacted in the mode required by law, and to be

unimpeachable”), and extended Marshall Field’s holding to

claims challenging state ratification of constitutional

amendments, see Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 137 (1922)

(“As the Legislatures of Tennessee and of West Virginia had

power to [ratify the Nineteenth Amendment], official notice to

the Secretary [of State], duly authenticated, that they had done

so was conclusive upon him, and, being certified to by his

proclamation, is conclusive upon the courts.”); cf. Sitka, 845

F.2d at 46-47 (same where Sixteenth Amendment was

challenged); Stahl, 792 F.2d at 1440-41 (same); United States v.

Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250, 1253-54 (7th Cir. 1986) (same).

Furthermore, the Courts of Appeals have consistently

invoked Marshall Field in refusing to conduct other inquiries

“into the internal governance of Congress.” Mester Mfg. Co. v.

INS, 879 F.2d 561, 571 (9th Cir. 1989); see, e.g., United States

v. Campbell, No. 06-3418, 2007 WL 1028785, at *1 (7th Cir.

Apr. 3, 2007) (unpublished order) (“Campbell proposes to argue

that 18 U.S.C. § 3231, which gives district judges jurisdiction to

hear criminal prosecutions, has no legal effect because the

House and Senate did not vote on it in the same session of

Congress. . . . The enrolled bill rule prevents looking behind

laws in th[at] way . . . .”); Mester Mfg., 879 F.2d at 570-71

(holding that “[i]n the absence of express constitutional

direction, [the courts must] defer to the reasonable procedures

Congress has ordained for its internal business” where an

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employer “assert[ed] that [the Immigration Reform and Control

Act of 1986] is entirely null and void, as unconstitutionally

passed . . . because Congress has no constitutional authority to

present a bill after adjournment sine die”); Gibson v. Anderson,

131 F. 39, 42-43 (9th Cir. 1904) (“The appellant cannot go

behind the authenticated published statutes of the United States,

and show that an act which purports to have been approved on

a certain date was in fact approved on a different date.”); cf. Am.

Fed’n of Gov’t Employees v. United States, 330 F.3d 513, 522

(D.C. Cir. 2003) (rejecting the argument that a statute may only

be supported by a rational basis included in congressional papers

and citing Marshall Field for the proposition that “Congress has

broad discretion in determining what must be published in the

official record”). 

Finally, the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed Marshall

Field in a case clarifying the limits of the enrolled bill rule: 

[T]he Marshall Field doctrine does not preclude us from

asking whether the statute means something other than what

the punctuation dictates. . . . The Marshall Field doctrine

concerns the nature of the evidence the Court [may]

consider in determining whether a bill had actually passed

Congress; it places no limits on the evidence a court may

consider in determining the meaning of a bill that has

passed Congress.

U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc.,

508 U.S. 439, 455 n.7 (1993) (internal quotation marks and

citation omitted); cf. United States v. Pabon-Cruz, 391 F.3d 86,

99-100 (2d Cir. 2004) (finding Marshall Field irrelevant where

the court’s “task . . . [was] not to doubt the accuracy or validity

of [a bill’s] language, but merely to determine what Congress

intended by it”); Cherry v. Steiner, 716 F.2d 687, 693 (9th Cir.

1983) (“The enrolled bill doctrine . . . forestall[s] judicial

inquiry into procedural irregularities occurring prior to the

enactment of bills, not inherent defects in bills as enrolled.”).

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Even in the face of this evidence, Public Citizen argues that

“there can be no question that courts may look behind an

enrolled bill to assess whether a law was passed.” Appellant’s

Br. at 10. Appellant rests this claim on the concluding sentence

of an oblique footnote in United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495

U.S. 385 (1990), see id. at 391 n.4, a case decided three years

prior to the Court’s reaffirmance of Marshall Field in U.S.

National Bank of Oregon. 

In Munoz-Flores, a Magistrate ordered the defendant to pay

a special assessment for each federal misdemeanor to which he

pled guilty. 495 U.S. at 388. Munoz-Flores argued that the

statute authorizing such assessments “was passed in violation of

the Origination Clause” which “mandates that ‘[a]ll Bills for

raising Revenue shall originate in the House of

Representatives.’” Id. at 387-88 (quoting U.S. CONST. art. I, §

7, cl. 1). In an earlier Origination Clause decision, the Court

avoided determining whether the enrolled bill rule applies to

such challenges by first concluding that the act before it was

“clearly not a revenue bill.” See Twin City Bank v. Nebeker, 167

U.S. 196, 200-03 (1897). Although the Munoz-Flores Court

likewise ultimately decided that the bill at issue “was not one for

raising revenue” and therefore found “consideration of [the]

origination question unnecessary,” 495 U.S. at 401 (internal

quotation marks omitted), it first addressed justiciability. The

Court framed its holding that Munoz-Flores’ claim was

justiciable in terms of the traditional political question doctrine

under Baker v. Carr, never mentioning Marshall Field in the

text of its opinion. Id. at 389-96.

Justice Scalia disagreed with the Court’s justiciability

determination, stating that the Marshall Field “principle, if not

the very same holding, [led him] to conclude that federal courts

should not undertake an independent investigation into the

origination of [a] statute . . . [where] . . . [t]he designation ‘H. J.

Res.’ (a standard abbreviation for ‘House Joint Resolution’)

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attests that the legislation originated in the House.” Id. at 408-

10 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). The Munoz-Flores

Court responded in a footnote:

JUSTICE SCALIA . . . contends that Congress’ resolution of

the constitutional question in passing the bill [with an “H.

J. Res.” designation] bars this Court from independently

considering that question. The only case he cites for his

argument is Marshall Field . . . . But Field does not support

his argument. That case concerned “the nature of the

evidence” the Court would consider in determining whether

a bill had actually passed Congress. . . . The Court rejected

[the importers’] interpretation of the Journal Clause,

holding that the Constitution left it to Congress to

determine how a bill is to be authenticated as having

passed. In the absence of any constitutional requirement

binding Congress, we stated that “[t]he respect due to

coequal and independent departments” demands that the

courts accept as passed all bills authenticated in the manner

provided by Congress. Where, as here, a constitutional

provision is implicated, Field does not apply.

Id. at 391 n.4 (internal citations omitted).

Public Citizen reads the last lines of this footnote to

effectively distinguish between Journal Clause challenges on

one hand and Origination Clause and Bicameralism Clause

challenges on the other: 

The distinction made . . . is between requirements with

respect to the enactment of laws and requirements that do

not affect valid enactment. Thus, for example, the

Constitution requires Congress to keep journals, but neither

the Constitution nor any statute conditions the enactment of

laws on the keeping of journals or imposes requirements on

the content of journals. Accordingly, as in Marshall Field,

the content of congressional journals cannot be used to

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impeach the validity of an enrolled bill that has been signed

. . . . On the other hand, the Constitution requires that

legislation to raise revenue originate in the House.

Therefore, as in Munoz-Flores, the courts may look beyond

an enrolled bill to determine whether a law has been passed

in accordance with that constitutional condition . . . .

At issue in this case is another requirement for the valid

enactment of law – the requirement that identical legislation

be passed in both the House and the Senate before it is

presented to the President for his signature. In accordance

with both Munoz-Flores and Marshall Field, the Court can

and should examine the evidence that this requirement has

been violated. 

Appellant’s Br. at 10-11. 

Public Citizen’s attempt to square the Munoz-Flores

footnote with Court precedent fails. In assessing appellant’s

claim, it is important to recall that Munoz-Flores did not in any

way involve the question raised in Marshall Field, i.e., whether

an authenticated enrolled bill had passed Congress. The

question instead was whether a provision that unquestionably

had passed Congress constituted a bill for raising revenue. It is

not plausible to think that the Court meant to overrule the

enrolled bill rule in the last two sentences of an obscure footnote

in a case that did not involve an application of the rule. Under

Public Citizen’s interpretation, the Munoz-Flores Court

overruled the time-tested Marshall Field decision sub silento in

a footnote, and then three years later inadvertently referenced

the purportedly defunct rule in U.S. National Bank of Oregon.

See 508 U.S. at 455 n.7. The argument collapses under its own

weight.

The last two sentences of the cited footnote in MunozFlores defy easy comprehension. Nonetheless, the text of the

footnote is clear on one point: the Court did not mean to

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overturn or modify the enrolled bill rule of Marshall Field. The

Court’s footnote in Munoz-Flores clearly states that “[t]he

respect due to coequal and independent departments demands

that the courts accept as passed all bills authenticated in the

manner provided by Congress.” 495 U.S. at 392 n.4 (internal

quotation marks omitted). The Court then says: “Where . . . a

constitutional provision is implicated, Field does not apply.” Id.

In other words, Marshall Field does apply in a case of the sort

at hand, where the court must “accept as passed [the bill]

authenticated in the manner provided by Congress.” Id. There

is nothing in the footnote to indicate that the Court meant to

distinguish between challenges arising under the Journal Clause

as opposed to challenges arising under the Origination Clause

and Bicameralism Clause, as Public Citizen suggests. Indeed,

the footnote appears unambiguous in reaffirming that there can

be no Bicameralism Clause challenge when a bill has been

authenticated in the manner provided by Congress. The text of

the footnote may be less than carefully crafted, but it does not

admit of the strained construction offered by appellant. 

Even more problematic for Public Citizen is that, given our

finding that Marshall Field has not been overturned or modified

by Munoz-Flores, there can be no doubt that the application of

appellant’s theory to the case at bar is positively foreclosed by

Marshall Field. The decision in Marshall Field addressed a

bicameralism challenge, so for us to embrace Public Citizen’s

argument that the enrolled bill rule does not apply to

“requirement[s] for the valid enactment of law,” such as the

Bicameralism Clause, would be tantamount to narrowing

Marshall Field entirely out of existence. Public Citizen’s claim

that Marshall Field involved only a Journal Clause challenge

and no bicameralism challenge is belied by the facts of that case.

Although the importers sought support from the Journal Clause

in their attempt to impeach the attested enrolled bill, they

advanced a Bicameralism Clause challenge, just as Public

Citizen does. 

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We acknowledge that the language of the Munoz-Flores

footnote is cumbersome, making it difficult to discern precisely

what the Court meant to say. The footnote indicates that the

“H. J. Res.” moniker does not carry the conclusive weight in the

Origination Clause context that the signatures of the presiding

officers command in the Bicameralism Clause context. In the

text of its decision, the Munoz-Flores Court stated that

adjudication of an Origination Clause challenge despite the

existence of an “H. J. Res.” designation no more “express[es] a

lack of respect for the House of Representatives” than does any

other constitutional challenge. Id. at 390-91 (internal quotation

marks and alteration omitted). In light of this conclusion, the

Munoz-Flores footnote might be seen as a simple attempt, in

response to Justice Scalia’s contention to the contrary, to

distinguish Origination Clause challenges from Bicameralism

Clause challenges based on the lesser applicability of the

separation of powers rationale in the former context. This is

hardly a satisfying explanation, however. Alternatively, the

footnote might be viewed as an ex post interpretation of

Marshall Field. In other words, if in the post-Marshall Field

legal landscape any bicameralism challenge made in the face of

an attested enrolled bill really raises no constitutional claim, the

Munoz-Flores Court could have – with perfect hindsight –

treated the claim in Marshall Field itself as similarly implicating

no constitutional provision. This makes some sense. We need

not resolve the puzzle of the footnote, however, because we are

satisfied that the Court’s decision in Munoz-Flores does not

purport to overrule or modify the enrolled bill rule. 

At bottom, Public Citizen asks that we set aside directly

controlling Supreme Court precedent in favor of an ambiguous

footnote. Public Citizen attempts to alter the balance, arguing

that the engrossed bill it proffers as evidence that the House

passed a 36-month duration figure is a “public record” far more

reliable than journals and one given “official status” when

Congress adopted 1 U.S.C. § 106 after the Court decided

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Marshall Field. Appellant’s Br. at 31-34. But this is beside the

point, because the argument in no way undercuts the public

policy and separation of powers rationales that undergird the

enrolled bill rule. One need only look to the breadth of the DRA

to understand the “vast magnitude” of “public and private

interests” which depend upon the certainty of statutes. Marshall

Field, 143 U.S. at 670. And today, no less than in 1892, the

spectacle of courts directing legislative authentication

procedures and otherwise meddling in the inner workings of

Congress “disregards that coequal position . . . of the three

[branches] of government.” Id. at 676 (internal quotation marks

omitted). 

The Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that we

“should [not] conclude [that its] more recent cases have, by

implication, overruled an earlier precedent.” Agostini v. Felton,

521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997). Therefore, even if we were inclined

to think that the Munoz-Flores footnote offers some implicit

support for Public Citizen’s position – and we are not – this

would not change the outcome that we reach today. The District

Court correctly decided that the enrolled bill rule governs the

disposition of this case. 

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the judgment of

the District Court.

So ordered.

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