In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 00-3220

Matt Lindland,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

United States of America Wrestling

Association, Inc., United States

Olympic Committee, and Keith Sieracki,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 00 C 5151--James B. Zagel, Judge.

No. 00-3236

Keith Sieracki,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

United States of America Wrestling

Association, Inc., and United States

Olympic Committee,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 00 C 5348--James B. Zagel, Judge.

Submitted August 30 and September 1, 2000--Decided

September 1, 2000--Opinion September 5, 2000/*

 Before Easterbrook, Manion, and Diane P. Wood, Circuit

Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Readers of our prior

opinions (or the sports pages) know that Keith

Sieracki and Matt Lindland both believe that they

are entitled to be the U.S. entrant in the 76
kilogram weight class of Greco-Roman wrestling at

the 2000 Olympic Games. They have met twice in

championship bouts where the Olympic spot was the

victor’s reward: Sieracki won the first by a

score of 2-1; Lindland won the second by a score

of 8-0. Each claims that his victory entitles him

to the slot in Sydney. Lindland protested the

result of the first match through the hierarchy

of USA Wrestling, the national governing body for

amateur wrestling. After USA Wrestling rejected

his protests, Lindland commenced arbitration,

which was his right under the Ted Stevens Olympic

and Amateur Sports Act. See 36 U.S.C.

sec.220529(a). Arbitrator Burns ordered the

rematch, which Lindland won. USA Wrestling was

unwilling to accept this outcome; instead of

sending Lindland’s name to the United States

Olympic Committee (USOC) as its nominee for the

Games, it told the USOC to send Sieracki and

listed Lindland only as a person eligible to

compete in the event of injury. Lindland then

sought confirmation of the Burns Award under

sec.9 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C.

sec.9, and in an opinion issued on August 24 we

held that Lindland is entitled to that relief--

which, we pointedly added, means that he is

entitled to be USA Wrestling’s nominee to the

USOC. Lindland v. USA Wrestling Association,

Inc., No. 00-3177 (7th Cir. Aug. 24, 2000).

 Later that day, USA Wrestling informed the USOC

that Sieracki remained its nominee. Its

explanation for this defiance was that a second

arbitrator, in a proceeding initiated by

Sieracki, had disagreed with Arbitrator Burns and

directed USA Wrestling to make Sieracki its

nominee on the basis of his victory in the first

match. USA Wrestling had no excuse for following

Arbitrator Campbell’s unreviewed award rather

than a decision of a federal court confirming

Arbitrator Burns’s award, and on August 25 we

issued a writ of mandamus requiring the district

court to ensure that USA Wrestling implemented

the Burns Award "immediately and

unconditionally." Lindland v. USA Wrestling

Association, Inc., No. 00-3177 (7th Cir. Aug. 25,

2000), slip op. 2. On August 26 USA Wrestling

finally complied, but the USOC then refused to

accept Lindland as a member of the team,

asserting that USA Wrestling’s nomination of

Lindland was untimely because Sieracki’s name

already had been sent to the International

Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

 Lindland then returned to the district court,

asking it to compel the USOC to send his name to

the IOC. Sieracki fought back by asking a

different district court (in Denver, Colorado) to

confirm the Campbell Award. The district judge in

Denver sensibly transferred that request to the
Northern District of Illinois under 28 U.S.C.

sec.1404, consolidating all proceedings arising

out of the dispute. The Northern District ordered

the USOC to request the IOC to substitute

Lindland for Sieracki. The USOC has done so, and

the IOC has made the substitution. The Northern

District also denied Sieracki’s petition to

confirm the Campbell Award. Two appeals ensued.

We expedited the briefing and affirmed both

decisions on September 1, promising that this

opinion would follow with an explanation.

 Although Lindland now is a member of the U.S.

team, and the IOC’s deadline for making changes

has expired, the dispute is not moot. The Games

begin at 4 a.m. on September 15 (Chicago time),

and the 76 kilogram classification in Greco-Roman

wrestling does not get underway until September

24. The IOC accepted a substitution of Lindland

for Sieracki after its deadline, remarking that

it was willing to make the change because the

USOC acted under judicial order. This implies

that if we now confirmed the Campbell Award

(including its provision annulling the Burns

Award) and directed the USOC to substitute

Sieracki for Lindland, the IOC would accept that

change as well. We therefore address the merits--

starting with what is logically the first issue,

whether to confirm the Campbell Award.

 Lindland had argued to Arbitrator Burns that

USA Wrestling’s grievance proceedings were

flawed. Arbitrator Burns agreed and ordered the

rematch as a remedy in lieu of directing USA

Wrestling to reconsider Lindland’s protest to the

judging of his match with Sieracki. Arbitrator

Campbell went over the same ground, disagreeing

with Arbitrator Burns about the adequacy of USA

Wrestling’s processes and adding that, in his

view, the result of the first match (which

everyone calls "Bout #244") had not been affected

by any errors in applying the scoring rules for

Greco-Roman wrestling. It is not a surprising

view for Arbitrator Campbell to have taken,

because the proceedings began amicably. Sieracki

initiated the arbitration to defend his initial

victory, and USA Wrestling, the respondent,

likewise defended both the scoring of the match

and the conduct of its internal appeals.

(Lindland intervened to defend the Burns Award,

but, having already won the rematch, was more

interested in preserving that victory than in

litigating from scratch.) What is surprising was

that Arbitrator Campbell not only approved the

result of the original Bout #244 and the adequacy

of USA Wrestling’s grievance procedures but also

directed it to ignore the result of the rematch--

that is, Arbitrator Campbell directed USA

Wrestling not to implement the Burns Award.
 Sieracki argues that the Campbell Award is no

less confirmable under the standards of the

Federal Arbitration Act than was the Burns Award,

see 9 U.S.C. sec.10, and if he is entitled to

confirmation of the Campbell Award then we should

set aside the confirmation of the Burns Award

(because relief from the Burns Award is part of

the Campbell Award). Certainly there is no

evidence that the Campbell Award is the result of

"corruption," "fraud," "evident partiality," or

any similar bar to confirmation. The district

court refused to enforce the Campbell Award

because the Burns Award had been enforced

already, and it read Consolidation Coal Co. v.

United Mine Workers, 213 F.3d 404 (7th Cir.

2000), as precluding enforcement of incompatible

awards. Only one of these athletes can be on the

Olympic Team, and the district judge thought that

federal courts should not order the USOC to send

both. Sieracki replies that arbitrators need not

follow judicial notions of preclusion--a good

point about arbitrators, see Brotherhood of

Maintenance of Way Employees v. Burlington

Northern R.R., 24 F.3d 937 (7th Cir. 1994), but

not about judges. Once the Burns Award was

confirmed, it was no longer simply the view of a

fellow arbitrator with which Campbell could

disagree. But this may not be a complete answer.

If the Campbell Award is understood to vacate the

Burns Award, then confirmation of the Campbell

Award logically entails vacating the prior

confirmation of the Burns Award. That step would

not leave USA Wrestling under conflicting

judicial instructions. (Nor is it clear that

conflict is an irremediable evil. Injunctions

create property rights, which may be altered by

private agreements. Bargaining among Sieracki,

Lindland, and USA Wrestling could lead to a

settlement that would relieve USA Wrestling of

any incompatible obligations. See Guido Calabresi

& A. Douglas Melamed, Property Rules, Liability

Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the

Cathedral, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1088 (1972).)

 Definitive resolution of the right way to

handle conflicting awards, after one has been

confirmed, may await another day. The Campbell

Award could not be confirmed even if it were the

sole award. It is doubly flawed: first, the

entire proceeding appears to have been ultra

vires; second, the award violates the Commercial

Rules of the American Arbitration Association,

under which the proceeding was conducted. 36

U.S.C. sec.220529(b)(2). Because Arbitrator

Campbell exceeded his powers, his award cannot be

confirmed. 9 U.S.C. sec.10(a)(4).

 Sieracki initiated an arbitration not to contest

a final decision by USA Wrestling but to protest

the Burns Award. Sieracki filed his demand for
arbitration on August 11, two days after the

Burns Award and three days before his rematch

with Lindland (and thus before any issues

associated with that bout could have arisen). The

Stevens Act does not authorize arbitration about

the propriety of another arbitrator’s decision.

Section 220529(a) provides:

A party aggrieved by a determination of the

corporation under section 220527 or 220528 of

this title may obtain review by any regional

office of the American Arbitration Association. 

What is arbitrable is "a determination of the

corporation under section 220527 or 220528 of

this title". Arbitrator Burns is not "the

corporation" (a term defined in sec.220501 as the

USOC, though some of its powers have been

delegated to national governing bodies such as

USA Wrestling); what is more, neither he nor USA

Wrestling (in implementing the Burns Award to the

extent of scheduling the rematch) rendered "a

determination . . . under section 220527 or

220528 of this title". Section 220528 deals with

applications to replace national governing

bodies. Section 220527 specifies remedies that

athletes have within national governing bodies

such as USA Wrestling. Lindland exhausted his

remedies within USA Wrestling and obtained "a

determination of the corporation under section

220527 . . . of this title", and thus was

entitled to arbitrate his grievance. Sieracki, by

contrast, did not initiate any proceedings within

the scope of sec.220527. Although

sec.220527(b)(1) allows athletes to forego

exhaustion when time is too short to allow

decision, it does not allow bypass of a claim

under sec.220527--that is, a contention that a

national governing body has failed "to comply

with sections 220522, 220524, and 220525 of this

title". 36 U.S.C. sec.220527(a). Sieracki did not

have such a claim and therefore was not entitled

to arbitration under the Stevens Act even if it

was proper to pretermit administrative remedies.

No other provision of which we are aware supports

arbitration whose sole subject is the decision of

a prior arbitrator. The Stevens Act would be

self-destructive if it authorized such

proceedings, which would lead to enduring turmoil

(as happened here) and defeat the statute’s

function of facilitating final resolution of

disputes, see sec.220529(d).

 Even if the second arbitration had been

authorized, however, the outcome would have been

forbidden by the rules under which it was

conducted. Rule 48 of the AAA’s Commercial Rules

provides that an "arbitrator is not empowered to

redetermine the merits of any claim already

decided." Sieracki stresses, as our opinion of
August 24 acknowledged, that judicial ideas about

issue and claim preclusion need not apply in

arbitration. But arbitrators assuredly are bound

by the contracts and other rules that give them

power to act. An arbitrator who throws aside

those rules and implements his "own brand of

industrial justice" oversteps his powers, and the

resulting award must be set aside. Steelworkers

v. Enterprise Wheel & Car Corp., 363 U.S. 593,

597 (1960); Paperworkers v. Misco, Inc., 484 U.S.

29, 36 (1987). What the Steelworkers Trilogy

declared about "industrial justice" is equally

true of commercial or athletic justice.

Arbitrators are not ombudsmen; they are

authorized to resolve disputes under contracts

and rules, not to declare how the world should

work in the large. Arbitrator Campbell did not

misinterpret Rule 48; he decided to ignore it

utterly. The whole point of the Campbell

proceeding was to redecide the issues that had

been before Arbitrator Burns, and the Campbell

Award directs USA Wrestling to disregard the

Burns Award. Campbell observed, correctly, that

Sieracki was not a party to the Burns

proceedings, but the other participants in the

proceedings before Arbitrator Campbell were

parties to the Burns proceedings. By the time

Campbell acted, the Burns Award had "already

decided" that the nomination to the Olympic Team

would depend on a rematch between Sieracki and

Lindland. Whatever powers Campbell possessed visa-vis Sieracki, he lacked the power to order USA

Wrestling to nominate anyone other than the

winner of the rematch. The Campbell Award

therefore is not entitled to confirmation.

 This conclusion makes it unnecessary to decide

whether, by participating in the Campbell

proceedings, Lindland waived or forfeited his

entitlement to the benefits of the Burns Award.

The Campbell Award is invalid, so it does not

bind Lindland or anyone else. But we shall not

conceal our doubt about this argument. The

"waiver" to which Sieracki and USA Wrestling

point is simply Lindland’s assent to the terms of

participation in the Olympic Games, one of which

is submitting to final and binding arbitration of

disputes. How such a document can surrender the

final and binding effect of the Burns Award is a

mystery. When Sieracki and USA Wrestling entered

into their friendly arbitration in an effort to

escape from the unwelcome Burns Award, Lindland

was in a tough spot. It would not be sensible to

say that he waived the benefits of an award

already in hand by trying to persuade Arbitrator

Campbell to follow his duties under AAA Rule 48

or by attempting to persuade Campbell that Burns

acted wisely (and thus to avert the problems that

have ensued from Campbell’s contrary decision).

Nor is it sensible to say, as Sieracki does, that
Lindland won a race to the courthouse. The

Campbell Award is invalid, so timing is

immaterial. Lindland is entitled to USA

Wrestling’s nomination because (a) Arbitrator

Burns ordered USA Wrestling to hold a rematch,

and (b) Lindland won that rematch. If Sieracki

had prevailed in the rematch, he would be on the

Olympic Team today. Athletic disputes should be

settled on the playing field--as the Burns Award

provided.

 For completeness, we add that none of the

parties’ arguments persuades us that the order

confirming the Burns Award should be

reconsidered. Sieracki, USA Wrestling, and the

USOC continue to assert that the Burns

proceedings were flawed because Sieracki was not

a party to them. These submissions ignore the

language of the Stevens Act, which provides for

arbitration between an aggrieved athlete and the

national governing body, not for arbitration

among athletes. In arbitration the national

governing body, by defending its decision (as USA

Wrestling vigorously did), also defends the

interests of the winning athlete. Doubtless the

constitution or bylaws of the USOC or USA

Wrestling could designate as additional parties

those athletes potentially affected by the

proceedings, but they do not do so. Arbitrator

Campbell himself remarked that "customarily in a

USOC Article IX arbitration . . . the competing

athlete who does not initiate the arbitration .

. . is not a participant and is not considered a

necessary party by the USOC." If the USOC now

favors a different approach, it should change its

own rules rather than ask a federal court to

disregard an award that was rendered following

normal procedures. (Normal outside athletics,

too, as our opinion of August 24 observed.)

 Lindland and USA Wrestling were the only

parties to the Burns proceedings. All the Burns

Award (coupled with Lindland’s victory in the

rematch of Bout #244) requires is that USA

Wrestling send Lindland’s name to the USOC as USA

Wrestling’s nominee for the team. By the time USA

Wrestling finally complied with the Burns Award--

11 days after Lindland won the rematch, and 2

days after we enforced the Burns Award--the

deadline for making nominations had passed, and

the USOC declared that it would send Sieracki to

Sydney. The district court’s injunction, the

IOC’s acceptance of Lindland, and the USOC’s

appeal followed.

 Most of the USOC’s submission on appeal

misunderstands the basis of the injunction.

Consider, for example, the USOC’s lengthy

argument, based on Michaels v. United States

Olympic Committee, 741 F.2d 155 (7th Cir. 1984)
(which interpreted the predecessor to

sec.220527), that there is no private right of

action to enforce the Stevens Act. That may or

may not be so under the current version of the

statute; we need not decide, because Lindland did

not file suit to enforce the Stevens Act. He sued

to enforce the Burns Award, and the Federal

Arbitration Act provides the necessary private

right of action. The dispositive question is

whether the order (and eventually the injunction)

entered against USA Wrestling binds the USOC too.

This depends on Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d): 

Every order granting an injunction and every

restraining order . . . is binding only upon the

parties to the action, their officers, agents,

servants, employees, and attorneys, and upon

those persons in active concert or participation

with them who receive actual notice of the order

by personal service or otherwise. 

The USOC, as a party to the proceedings to

enforce the Burns Award, received actual notice

of our decision on August 24 requiring USA

Wrestling to nominate Lindland forthwith. USA

Wrestling tarried, but the USOC knew what USA

Wrestling was required to do and easily could

have taken our decision as equivalent to a formal

nomination by USA Wrestling on August 24--when it

would have been timely under the USOC’s rules.

The district court’s injunction requires the USOC

to do what it should and would have done had USA

Wrestling timely complied with the decision of

August 24. This order is proper if the USOC is a

person "in active concert or participation with"

USA Wrestling.

 Briefing the "active concert or participation"

issue at our instructions, the USOC contends that

it is an independent organization, entitled to

make the final decision. No one doubts this, but

the "active concert or participation" clause

supposes legal distinctiveness; if USA Wrestling

and the USOC were the same party, the order would

be binding directly. The "active concert or

participation" clause is designed to prevent what

may well have happened here: the addressee of an

injunction, eager to avoid its obligations,

persuades a friendly third party to take steps

that frustrate the injunction’s effectiveness.

See Reich v. Sea Sprite Boat Co., 50 F.3d 413

(7th Cir. 1995). The USOC has given every

indication of willingness to lend a hand. For

example, it responded to the initiation of the

Campbell proceedings by promising to respect

their outcome--which entails a promise to ignore

the outcome of the Burns proceedings. The events

of August 24 also imply that USA Wrestling and

the USOC acted in concert. On the evening of

August 24 USA Wrestling sent the USOC one
document "notifying" it of this court’s decision

and a second document nominating Sieracki. The

USOC decided to accept the nomination of

Sieracki, knowing full well that this nomination

violated a decision of this court. The inference

that USA Wrestling and the USOC undertook a joint

effort to defeat the Burns Award (and our

decision) is very strong.

 That inference could be overcome by a

demonstration that the USOC had an independent

ground of decision. No one doubts that the USOC

may adopt its own criteria and make its own

selections. 36 U.S.C. sec.220505(c). Thus if, for

example, Lindland failed a drug test, or if his

behavior at past international competitions had

brought shame on the team (as the U.S. Olympic

hockey team did en masse in 1998), then the USOC

could have sent Sieracki to the Games. Similarly,

if the USOC regularly made its own judgments

about athletic prowess, then a determination that

Sieracki is the wrestler most likely to succeed

in Sydney would be respected by the federal

judiciary. Yet in response to a question posed by

this court (and a similar one posed by the

district court), the USOC failed to identify even

a single instance in which it has not forwarded

to the IOC the nomination of a national governing

body such as USA Wrestling. Its promise to send

whichever athlete Arbitrator Campbell selected

abjures any independent role; indeed, that

promise is the best evidence that USA Wrestling

and the USOC have acted jointly to implement the

Campbell Award despite judicial enforcement of

the Burns Award.

 When on August 15 it originally sent to the IOC

the full list of USA Wrestling’s nominees (a list

that included Sieracki despite Lindland’s victory

on August 14), the USOC did not make an

independent decision about their athletic skills;

instead the certification says that the list (and

the USOC’s approval) is "based on the selection

criteria devised and previously approved by the

USOC" and in particular that "[t]he selection of

the NGB athlete nominations were [sic] conducted

in our estimation according to the policies and

procedures approved by the USOC for the 2000

Olympic Summer Games." In other words, the USOC

investigated only to ensure that USA Wrestling

followed the rules for selecting its nominees.

One of these rules (quoted in our August 24

opinion) specifies that the winner of Bout #244

would be USA Wrestling’s nominee in the 76

kilogram classification. Lindland is the winner

of Bout #244 and the recipient of USA Wrestling’s

(belated) nomination. Under the USOC’s own rules,

therefore, Lindland is entitled to the position

on the Olympic Team. This makes it very hard to

understand the USOC’s position as anything other
than a continuation of the view disparaged in our

August 24 opinion: a belief by the USOC that

athletes who pursue their rights under the

Stevens Act should be penalized. The district

court was entitled to prevent the USOC from

carrying out that view under the pretext that USA

Wrestling’s nomination of Lindland arrived too

late.

 Nonetheless, the USOC insists, it is entitled

to do as it pleases--defying injunctions to its

heart’s content--if it manages to stall until

only three weeks remain before the Games. For

this proposition it relies on another part of the

Stevens Act, 36 U.S.C. sec.220509(a): 

The corporation shall establish and maintain

provisions in its constitution and bylaws for the

swift and equitable resolution of disputes

involving any of its members and relating to the

opportunity of an amateur athlete, coach,

trainer, manager, administrator, or official to

participate in the Olympic Games, the Paralympic

Games, the Pan-American Games, world championship

competition, or other protected competition as

defined in the constitution and bylaws of the

corporation. In any lawsuit relating to the

resolution of a dispute involving the opportunity

of an amateur athlete to participate in the

Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games, or the PanAmerican Games, a court shall not grant

injunctive relief against the corporation within

21 days before the beginning of such games if the

corporation, after consultation with the chair of

the Athletes’ Advisory Council, has provided a

sworn statement in writing executed by an officer

of the corporation to such court that its

constitution and bylaws cannot provide for the

resolution of such dispute prior to the beginning

of such games. 

Saturday, August 26, was the 21st day before the

"beginning" of the Sydney Olympics. The USOC

filed in the district court an affidavit

parroting the statutory terms and insists that,

as a result, the district court was powerless to

enforce the Burns Award.

 Section 220509(a) is designed to prevent a

court from usurping the USOC’s powers when time

is too short for its own dispute-resolution

machinery to do its work. The premise of the

USOC’s argument is that the dispute among

Lindland, Sieracki, and USA Wrestling is one to

be resolved by the USOC’s internal processes,

which can’t be done at this late date. This is

just another variation of the USOC’s

misunderstanding about the genesis of the

district court’s order. Lindland has not asserted

a private right of action to enforce the Stevens
Act, nor has he attempted to initiate a new

dispute-resolution process before the USOC. His

claim depends on the Burns Award, which was

issued on August 9, well outside the 21-day

window, and the decision of this court, also

issued before the 21st day. The only question on

the table is whether USA Wrestling and the USOC

will comply with obligations that had been

established before that three-week period. The

USOC’s liability stems from its obligation as an

entity "in active concert or participation with"

USA Wrestling to avoid frustrating the order

enforcing the Burns Award.

 We do not for one second believe that Congress

set out to reward intransigence, so that the USOC

can protect scofflaws among the national

governing bodies, or itself defy judicial orders

if, on the 21st day before the Olympic torch

enters the stadium, the President of the USOC is

not already in prison for contempt. There is no

dispute for the USOC to resolve, so its inability

under its constitution and bylaws to act on short

notice is not important. All the USOC had to do

was implement this court’s decision of August 24

(enforcing the Burns Award of August 9); all we

hold is that delay in compliance with an

obligation judicially articulated before the 21st

day does not entitle the USOC to escape that

obligation. To put this in the statutory

language, the prohibition applies only if "such

dispute"--that is, a dispute to be handled under

the USOC’s procedures--can’t be resolved in the

time remaining before the games. When no "such

dispute" survives into the three-week period

(because it had been resolved earlier),

sec.220509(a) does not preclude enforcement of

the outstanding decision.

 Senator Stevens himself may have a different

view about the effect of sec.220509(a). At the

behest of the USOC, he wrote a letter asking the

district judge to vacate its order. Our reading

of the letter implies that the USOC misinformed

the Senator about the nature of the controversy

and the reason the district judge had ordered the

USOC to send Lindland’s name to the IOC, but no

matter. Legislative history is a chancy subject;

subsequent legislative history is weaker still,

Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 566-68 (1988);

Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U.S. 25, 35 (1982);

Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U.S.

102, 132 (1974), indeed is an oxymoron, see

Continental Can Co. v. Chicago Truck Drivers

Pension Fund, 916 F.2d 1154, 1157 (7th Cir.

1990), and a letter or affidavit written as a

form of constituent service is the bottom of the

pecking order. See Bread Political Action

Committee v. FEC, 455 U.S. 577, 582 n.3 (1982).

Letters written after a statute’s enactment were
not presented in the course of debate and so are

not the sort of views that may be credible

because other members of the legislature rely on

them and may impose penalties on those who

misrepresent, or misunderstand, the text. Compare

William N. Eskridge, Jr., Dynamic Statutory

Interpretation 210-38 (1994), and McNollgast,

Positive Canons: The Role of Legislative Bargains

in Statutory Interpretation, 80 Geo. L.J. 705

(1992), with John F. Manning, Textualism as a

Nondelegation Doctrine, 97 Colum. L. Rev. 673

(1997).

 A letter from a Member of Congress telling a

judge how to decide a pending case reflects a

misunderstanding of the difference between

legislative and judicial functions. Senator

Stevens played a leading role in the creation of

sec.220509, but he has no role in adjudication.

Giving weight to such a letter would only invite

other litigants to pester Members of Congress for

expressions of support--or Members of Congress to

pester the courts with their latest views about

how laws should be implemented and cases decided.

It is best, we think, for each institution to hew

to its constitutional function. See Bread PAC;

Abbott v. Virginia Beach, 879 F.2d 132, 136 (4th

Cir. 1989); Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v.

Wheelabrator Technologies, Inc., 725 F. Supp.

758, 769-70 (S.D. N.Y. 1989); Stephen F.

Williams, Legislative History and the Problem of

Age, 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1366, 1369 & n.12

(1998).

Affirmed

/* Because the Olympic Games are imminent, No. 00-

3220 was submitted for decision by the filing of

simultaneous briefs on August 30, and No. 00-3236

was submitted under the same procedure on

September 1. Later that day the court affirmed

the judgments in both cases, issuing a short

order indicating that this opinion would follow.