Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1334_8m58.pdf
Page Number: 23

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

those  challenging  the  Board’s  constitutional  legitimacy. 
Lebron considered whether, for First Amendment purposes,
Amtrak was a governmental or a private entity.  513 U. S., 
at 379.  All here agree that the Board is a Government en-
tity, but that fact does not answer the “primarily local ver-
sus primarily federal” question.  In MWAA, the Court held 
that  separation-of-powers  principles  forbid  Members  of 
Congress to become members of a board that controls fed-
erally  owned  airports.  501  U. S.,  at  275–276  (relying  on 
Bowsher  v.  Synar,  478  U. S.  714,  726  (1986),  and  INS  v. 
Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 952 (1983)).  The Court expressly 
declined  to  answer  any  question  related  to  the  Appoint-
ments Clause.  501 U. S., at 277, n. 23. 

While we have found no case from this Court directly on
point, we believe that the Court’s analysis in O’Donoghue v. 
United States, 289 U. S. 516 (1933), and especially Palmore 
v. United States, 411 U. S. 389, provides a rough analogy. 
In O’Donoghue, the Court considered whether Article III’s 
tenure and salary protections applied to judges of the courts
in the District of Columbia.  The Court held that they did.
Those  courts,  it  believed,  were  “ ‘courts  of  the  United 
States’ ” and “recipients of the judicial power of the United
States.”  289 U. S., at 546, 548.  The judges’ salaries conse-
quently could not be reduced.  Id., at 551. 

In Palmore, however, the Court reached what might seem
the precisely opposite conclusion.  A criminal defendant, in-
voking O’Donoghue, argued that the D. C. Superior Court 
Judge  could  not  constitutionally  preside  over the  case  be-
cause  the  judge  lacked  Article  III’s  tenure  protection, 
namely, life tenure.  Palmore, supra, at 390.  But the Court 
rejected the defendant’s argument.  Why?  How did it ex-
plain O’Donoghue? 

The difference, said the Court, lies in the fact that, in the 
meantime, Congress had changed the nature of the District 
of Columbia court.  Palmore, supra, at 406–407; see District 
of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of