Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/506/224/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 16:39:09+00:00

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The political question doctrine is triggered when the text of the Constitution has shown that an issue lies outside the scope of the courts, or there is no judicial standard for resolving the issue.
Nixon was convicted and imprisoned for making false statements to a grand jury during his tenure as a federal judge in Mississippi. The House of Representatives impeached him for high crimes and misdemeanors, and the Senate convicted him. A Senate committee heard the testimony of witnesses in the impeachment trial under Senate Rule XI. Nixon challenged the constitutionality of this rule on the grounds that it improperly delegated his trial to a committee, rather than requiring the full Senate to try him as provided by the Impeachment Trial Clause. The lower court dismissed the case, finding that it was a political question.
The Senate is vested with the sole power to try all impeachments, but there is no constitutional limitation on the methods that it may use in trying them. Other requirements support a finding that the use of the word "try" does not impose a limitation, such as the rule that the members must be under oath and that a conviction requires a two-thirds vote. The word "sole" in the Impeachment Trial Clause indicates that the Senate was meant to have total authority over this issue. The separate process of a criminal trial is available in the judicial system, which provides the branches with sufficiently independent forms of judgment. Impeachment is considered to be the only check on the judicial powers by the legislature, so it would be improper for courts to review a matter connected with it.
The word "sole" was meant to restrict the authority of the House of Representatives rather than the use of judicial review. It would be reasonable to assume that the Framers intended to use "try" in its legal sense, which would allow courts to use a manageable standard.
In some instances, courts might be allowed to intervene in the impeachment process, such as if it were undermining the integrity of the Senate.
The political question doctrine applies only in a few distinctive situations, most notably foreign affairs, and its scope has narrowed with time. However, a plain reading of the Constitution makes it clear that the judiciary is not tasked with making exactly this determination.
NIXON v. UNITED STATES ET AL.
Mter petitioner Nixon, the Chief Judge of a Federal District Court, was convicted offederal crimes and sentenced to prison, the House of Representatives adopted articles of impeachment against him and presented them to the Senate. Following proceedings pursuant to Senate Rule XI-which allows a committee of Senators to hear evidence against an impeached individual and to report that evidence to the full Senatethe Senate voted to convict Nixon, and the presiding officer entered judgment removing him from his judgeship. He then commenced the present suit for a declaratory judgment and reinstatement of his judicial salary and privileges, arguing that, because Senate Rule XI prohibits the whole Senate from taking part in the evidentiary hearings, it violates the first sentence of the Constitution's Impeachment Trial Clause, Art. I, § 3, cl. 6, which provides that the "Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments." The District Court held that his claim was nonjusticiable, i. e., involved a political question that could not be resolved by the courts. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: Nixon's claim that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause is nonjusticiable. Pp. 228-238.
(a) A controversy is nonjusticiable where there is "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it .... " Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217. These two concepts are not completely separate; the lack of judicially manageable standards may strengthen the conclusion that there is a textually demonstrable commitment to a coordinate branch. Pp. 228-229.
that the Chief Justice presides when the President is tried-the precise nature of which suggests that the Framers did not intend to impose additional limitations on the form of the Senate proceedings. The Clause's first sentence must instead be read as a grant of authority to the Senate to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted, and the commonsense and dictionary meanings of the word "sole" indicate that this authority is reposed in the Senate alone. Nixon's attempts to negate the significance of "sole" are unavailing, while his alternative reading of the word as requiring impeachment only by the full Senate is unnatural and would impose on the Senate additional procedural requirements that would be inconsistent with the three express limitations that the Clause sets out. A review of the Constitutional Convention's history and the contemporary commentary supports a reading of the constitutional language as deliberately placing the impeachment power in the Legislature, with no judicial involvement, even for the limited purpose of judicial review. Pp. 229-236.
(c) Justiciability is also refuted by (1) the lack of finality inherent in exposing the country's political life-particularly if the President were impeached-to months, or perhaps years, of chaos during judicial review of Senate impeachment proceedings, or during any retrial that a differently constituted Senate might conduct if its first judgment of conviction were invalidated, and by (2) the difficulty of fashioning judicial relief other than simply setting aside the Senate's judgment of conviction. See Baker, supra, at 210. P. 236.
(d) A holding of nonjusticiability is consistent with this Court's opinion in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486. Unlike the situation in that case, there is no separate constitutional provision which could be defeated by allowing the Senate final authority to determine the meaning of the word "try" in Art. I, § 3, cl. 6. While courts possess power to review legislative action that transgresses identifiable textual limits, the word "try" does not provide such a limit on the authority committed to the Senate. Pp. 236-238.
290 U. S. App. D. C. 420, 938 F.2d 239, affirmed.
REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 238. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 239. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 252.
David Overlock Stewart argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs were Peter M. Brody, Thomas B. Smith, Boyce Holleman, and Michael B. Holleman.
Solicitor General Starr argued the cause for respondents.
Petitioner Walter L. Nixon, Jr., asks this Court to decide whether Senate Rule XI, which allows a committee of Senators to hear evidence against an individual who has been impeached and to report that evidence to the full Senate, violates the Impeachment Trial Clause, Art. I, § 3, cl. 6. That Clause provides that the "Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments." But before we reach the merits of such a claim, we must decide whether it is "justiciable," that is, whether it is a claim that may be resolved by the courts. We conclude that it is not.
Nixon, a former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, was convicted by a jury of two counts of making false statements before a federal grand jury and sentenced to prison. See United States v. Nixon, 816 F.2d 1022 (CA5 1987). The grand jury investigation stemmed from reports that Nixon had accepted a gratuity from a Mississippi businessman in exchange for asking a local district attorney to halt the prosecution of the businessman's son. Because Nixon refused to resign from his office as a United States District Judge, he continued to collect his judicial salary while serving out his prison sentence. See H. R. Rep. No. 101-36, p. 13 (1989).
* Patti A. Goldman and Alan B. Morrison filed a brief for Public Citizen as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Joseph P. Galda, Daniel J. Popeo, and Paul D. Kamenar filed a brief for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
meanors. The first two articles charged Nixon with giving false testimony before the grand jury and the third article charged him with bringing disrepute on the Federal Judiciary. See 135 Congo Rec. H1811.
and delivered arguments from the Senate floor during the three hours set aside for oral argument in front of that body. Nixon himself gave a personal appeal, and several Senators posed questions directly to both parties. 135 Congo Rec. S14493-14517 (Nov. 1, 1989). The Senate voted by more than the constitutionally required two-thirds majority to convict Nixon on the first two articles. Id., at S14635 (Nov. 3, 1989). The presiding officer then entered judgment removing Nixon from his office as United States District Judge.
Nixon thereafter commenced the present suit, arguing that Senate Rule XI violates the constitutional grant of authority to the Senate to "try" all impeachments because it prohibits the whole Senate from taking part in the evidentiary hearings. See Art. I, § 3, cl. 6. Nixon sought a declaratory judgment that his impeachment conviction was void and that his judicial salary and privileges should be reinstated. The District Court held that his claim was nonjusticiable, 744 F. Supp. 9 (DC 1990), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. 290 U. S. App. D. C. 420, 938 F.2d 239 (1991). We granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 1090 (1992).
clusion that there is a textually demonstrable commitment to a coordinate branch.
And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present."
The Senate shall be on oath or affirmation, a two-thirds vote is required to convict, and when the President is tried the Chief Justice shall preside.
Petitioner argues that the word "try" in the first sentence imposes by implication an additional requirement on the Senate in that the proceedings must be in the nature of a judicial trial. From there petitioner goes on to argue that this limitation precludes the Senate from delegating to a select committee the task of hearing the testimony of witnesses, as was done pursuant to Senate Rule XI. "'[T]ry' means more than simply 'vote on' or 'review' or 'judge.' In 1787 and today, trying a case means hearing the evidence, not scanning a cold record." Brief for Petitioner 25. Petitioner concludes from this that courts may review whether or not the Senate "tried" him before convicting him.
"[t]o examine" or "[t]o examine as a judge." See 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1785). In more modern usage the term has various meanings. For example, try can mean "to examine or investigate judicially," "to conduct the trial of," or "to put to the test by experiment, investigation, or trial." Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2457 (1971). Petitioner submits that "try," as contained in T. Sheridan, Dictionary of the English Language (1796), means "to examine as a judge; to bring before a judicial tribunal." Based on the variety of definitions, however, we cannot say that the Framers used the word "try" as an implied limitation on the method by which the Senate might proceed in trying impeachments. "As a rule the Constitution speaks in general terms, leaving Congress to deal with subsidiary matters of detail as the public interests and changing conditions may require .... " Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U. S. 368, 376 (1921).
The conclusion that the use of the word "try" in the first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause lacks sufficient precision to afford any judicially manageable standard of review of the Senate's actions is fortified by the existence of the three very specific requirements that the Constitution does impose on the Senate when trying impeachments: The Members must be under oath, a two-thirds vote is required to convict, and the Chief Justice presides when the President is tried. These limitations are quite precise, and their nature suggests that the Framers did not intend to impose additionallimitations on the form of the Senate proceedings by the use of the word "try" in the first sentence.
"sole Power of Impeachment." Art. I, § 2, cl. 5 (emphasis added). The commonsense meaning of the word "sole" is that the Senate alone shall have authority to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted. The dictionary definition bears this out. "Sole" is defined as "having no companion," "solitary," "being the only one," and "functioning ... independently and without assistance or interference." Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2168 (1971). If the courts may review the actions of the Senate in order to determine whether that body "tried" an impeached official, it is difficult to see how the Senate would be "functioning ... independently and without assistance or interference."
mittee of Style added an arguably substantive word. Such a result is at odds with the fact that the Convention passed the Committee's version, and with the well-established rule that the plain language of the enacted text is the best indicator of intent.
have noted, sets out three express limitations in separate sentences.
The history and contemporary understanding of the impeachment provisions support our reading of the constitutionallanguage. The parties do not offer evidence of a single word in the history of the Constitutional Convention or in contemporary commentary that even alludes to the possibility of judicial review in the context of the impeachment powers. See 290 U. S. App. D. C., at 424, 938 F. 2d, at 243; R. Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 116 (1973). This silence is quite meaningful in light of the several explicit references to the availability of judicial review as a check on the Legislature's power with respect to bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and statutes. See The Federalist No. 78, p. 524 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) ("Limitations ... can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of justice").
credit and authority" to carry out its judgment if it conflicted with the accusation brought by the Legislature-the people's representative. See id., at 441. In addition, the Framers believed the Court was too small in number: "The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons." Id., at 441-442.
"Would it be proper that the persons, who had disposed of his fame and his most valuable rights as a citizen in one trial, should in another trial, for the same offence, be also the disposers of his life and his fortune? Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error in the first sentence would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights, which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision?" The Federalist No. 65, p. 442 (J. Cooke ed. 1961).
"The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be impeached for mal-conduct by the house of representatives, and tried by the senate, and if convicted, may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point, which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own constitution in respect to our own judges." Id., No. 79, at 532-533 (emphasis added).
2 Nixon contends that justiciability should not hang on the mere fact that the Judiciary's interest may be implicated or affected by the legislative action in question. In support, he cites our decisions in Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361 (1989), and Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654 (1988). These cases do not advance his argument, however, since neither addressed the issue of justiciability. More importantly, neither case involved a situation in which judicial review would remove the only check placed on the Judicial Branch by the Framers.
safeguards to keep the Senate in check. The first safeguard is that the whole of the impeachment power is divided between the two legislative bodies, with the House given the right to accuse and the Senate given the right to judge. Id., No. 66, at 446. This split of authority "avoids the inconvenience of making the same persons both accusers and judges; and guards against the danger of persecution from the prevalency of a factious spirit in either of those branches." The second safeguard is the two-thirds supermajority vote requirement. Hamilton explained that "[a]s the concurrence of two-thirds of the senate will be requisite to a condemnation, the security to innocence, from this additional circumstance, will be as complete as itself can desire." Ibid.
tives' conclusion that Powell was "unqualified" to sit as a Member because he had been accused of misappropriating public funds and abusing the process of the N ew York courts. We stated that the question of justiciability turned on whether the Constitution committed authority to the House to judge its Members' qualifications, and if so, the extent of that commitment. Id., at 519, 521. Article I, § 5, provides that "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." In turn, Art. I, § 2, specifies three requirements for membership in the House: The candidate must be at least 25 years of age, a citizen of the United States for no less than seven years, and an inhabitant of the State he is chosen to represent. We held that, in light of the three requirements specified in the Constitution, the word "qualifications"-of which the House was to be the Judge-was of a precise, limited nature. Id., at 522; see also The Federalist No. 60, p. 409 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) ("The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon another occasion, are defined and fixed in the constitution; and are unalterable by the legislature") (emphasis added) (quoted in Powell, supra, at 539).
courts possess power to review either legislative or executive action that transgresses identifiable textual limits. As we have made clear, "whether the action of [either the Legislative or Executive Branch] exceeds whatever authority has been committed, is itself a delicate exercise in constitutional interpretation, and is a responsibility of this Court as ultimate interpreter of the Constitution." Baker v. Carr, supra, at 211; accord, Powell, supra, at 521. But we conclude, after exercising that delicate responsibility, that the word "try" in the Impeachment Trial Clause does not provide an identifiable textual limit on the authority which is committed to the Senate.
For me, the debate about the strength of the inferences to be drawn from the use of the words "sole" and "try" is far less significant than the central fact that the Framers decided to assign the impeachment power to the Legislative Branch. The disposition of the impeachment of Samuel Chase in 1805 demonstrated that the Senate is fully conscious of the profound importance of that assignment, and nothing in the subsequent history of the Senate's exercise of this extraordinary power suggests otherwise. See generally 3 A. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall 169-222 (1919); W. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests 275-278 (1992). Respect for a coordinate branch of the Government forecloses any assumption that improbable hypotheticals like those mentioned by JUSTICE WHITE and JUSTICE SOUTER will ever occur. Accordingly, the wise policy of judicial restraint, coupled with the potential anomalies associated with a contrary view, see ante, at 234-236, provide a sufficient justification for my agreement with the views of THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
JUSTICE WHITE, with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN joins, concurring in the judgment.
Petitioner contends that the method by which the Senate convicted him on two articles of impeachment violates Art. I, § 3, cl. 6, of the Constitution, which mandates that the Senate "try" impeachments. The Court is of the view that the Constitution forbids us even to consider his contention. I find no such prohibition and would therefore reach the merits of the claim. I concur in the judgment because the Senate fulfilled its constitutional obligation to "try" petitioner.
It should be said at the outset that, as a practical matter, it will likely make little difference whether the Court's or my view controls this case. This is so because the Senate has very wide discretion in specifying impeachment trial procedures and because it is extremely unlikely that the Senate would abuse its discretion and insist on a procedure that could not be deemed a trial by reasonable judges. Even taking a wholly practical approach, I would prefer not to announce an unreviewable discretion in the Senate to ignore completely the constitutional direction to "try" impeachment cases. When asked at oral argument whether that direction would be satisfied if, after a House vote to impeach, the Senate, without any procedure whatsoever, unanimously found the accused guilty of being "a bad guy," counsel for the United States answered that the Government's theory "leads me to answer that question yes." Tr. of Oral Arg. 51. Especially in light of this advice from the Solicitor General, I would not issue an invitation to the Senate to find an excuse, in the name of other pressing business, to be dismissive of its critical role in the impeachment process.
The majority states that the question raised in this case meets two of the criteria for political questions set out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 (1962). It concludes first that there is "'a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department.''' It also finds that the question cannot be resolved for" 'a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards.' " Ante, at 228.
the life span of a proposed constitutional amendment given Art. V's placement of the amendment process with Congress and the lack of any judicial standard for resolving the question. See also id., at 457-460 (Black, J., concurring).
The majority finds a clear textual commitment in the Constitution's use of the word "sole" in the phrase "[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments." Art. I, § 3, cl. 6. It attributes "considerable significance" to the fact that this term appears in only one other passage in the Constitution. Ante, at 230. See Art. I, § 2, cl. 5 (the House of Representatives "shall have the sole Power of Impeachment"). The Framers' sparing use of "sole" is thought to indicate that its employment in the Impeachment Trial Clause demonstrates a concern to give the Senate exclusive interpretive authority over the Clause.
and without assistance or interference,'" ante, at 231, it wrongly identifies the Judiciary, rather than the House, as the source of potential interference with which the Framers were concerned when they employed the term "sole."
Even if the Impeachment Trial Clause is read without regard to its companion Clause, the Court's willingness to abandon its obligation to review the constitutionality of legislative acts merely on the strength of the word "sole" is perplexing. Consider, by comparison, the treatment of Art. I, § 1, which grants "All legislative powers" to the House and Senate. As used in that context "all" is nearly synonymous with "sole"-both connote entire and exclusive authority. Yet the Court has never thought it would unduly interfere with the operation of the Legislative Branch to entertain difficult and important questions as to the extent of the legislative power. Quite the opposite, we have stated that the proper interpretation of the Clause falls within the province of the Judiciary. Addressing the constitutionality of the legislative veto, for example, the Court found it necessary and proper to interpret Art. I, § 1, as one of the "[e]xplicit and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution [that] prescribe and define the respective functions of the Congress and of the Executive in the legislative process." INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 945 (1983).
reside in the Legislative Branch to provide a check on the largely unaccountable Judiciary.
The majority's review of the historical record thus explains why the power to try impeachments properly resides with the Senate. It does not explain, however, the sweeping statement that the Judiciary was "not chosen to have any role in impeachments." 1 Ante, at 234. Not a single word in the historical materials cited by the majority addresses judicial review of the Impeachment Trial Clause. And a glance at the arguments surrounding the Impeachment Clauses negates the majority's attempt to infer nonjusticiability from the Framers' arguments in support of the Senate's power to try impeachments.
1 This latter contention is belied by the Impeachment Trial Clause itself, which designates the Chief Justice to preside over impeachment trials of the President.
pation of each branch. Id., at 74-75. Jefferson likewise had attempted to develop an interbranch system for impeachment trials in Virginia. Id., at 71-72. Even Hamilton's eloquent defense of the scheme adopted by the Constitution was based on a pragmatic decision to further the cause of ratification rather than a strong belief in the superiority of a scheme vesting the Senate with the sole power to try impeachments. While at the Convention, Hamilton advocated that impeachment trials be conducted by a court made up of state-court judges. 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 292-293 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). Four months after publishing The Federalist Nos. 65 and 66, however, he urged the New York Ratifying Convention to amend the Clause he had so ably defended to have the Senate, the Supreme Court, and judges from each State jointly try impeachments. 5 The Papers of Alexander Hamilton 167-168 (H. Syrett ed. 1962).
controlling the largely unaccountable Judiciary, even as judicial review would ensure that the Senate adhered to a minimal set of procedural standards in conducting impeachment trials.
The majority also contends that the term "try" does not present a judicially manageable standard. It notes that in 1787, as today, the word "try" may refer to an inquiry in the nature of a judicial proceeding, or, more generally, to experimentation or investigation. In light of the term's multiple senses, the Court finds itself unable to conclude that the Framers used the word "try" as "an implied limitation on the method by which the Senate might proceed in trying impeachments." Ante, at 230. Also according to the majority, comparison to the other more specific requirements listed in the Impeachment Trial Clause-that the senators must proceed under oath and vote by two-thirds to convict, and that the Chief Justice must preside over an impeachment trial of the President-indicates that the word "try" was not meant by the Framers to constitute a limitation on the Senate's conduct and further reveals the term's unmanageability.
cations of Art. I, § 2, are readily susceptible to judicial interpretation, the term "try" does not provide an "identifiable textual limit on the authority which is committed to the Senate." Ante, at 238.
This argument comes in two variants. The first, which asserts that one simply cannot ascertain the sense of "try" which the Framers employed and hence cannot undertake judicial review, is clearly untenable. To begin with, one would intuitively expect that, in defining the power of a political body to conduct an inquiry into official wrongdoing, the Framers used "try" in its legal sense. That intuition is borne out by reflection on the alternatives. The third Clause of Art. I, § 3, cannot seriously be read to mean that the Senate shall "attempt" or "experiment with" impeachments. It is equally implausible to say that the Senate is charged with "investigating" impeachments given that this description would substantially overlap with the House of Representatives' "sole" power to draw up articles of impeachment. Art. I, § 2, cl. 5. That these alternatives are not realistic possibilities is finally evidenced by the use of "tried" in the third sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause ("[w]hen the President of the United States is tried ... "), and by Art. III, § 2, cl. 3 ("[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment ... ").
2 It is not a sufficient rejoinder to this example to say, with one of the Court of Appeals judges below, that it postulates a "monstrous hypothetical abuse." See 290 U. S. App. D. C. 420,427, 938 F.2d 239, 246 (1991). The unlikelihood of the example being realized does not undermine the point that "try" has a definable meaning and thus ought to be regarded as judicially manageable.
3 The majority's in terrorem argument against justiciability-that judicial review of impeachments might cause national disruption and that the courts would be unable to fashion effective relief-merits only brief attention. In the typical instance, court review of impeachments would no more render the political system dysfunctional than has this litigation. Moreover, the same capacity for disruption was noted and rejected as a basis for not hearing Powell. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 549 (1969). The relief granted for unconstitutional impeachment trials would presumably be similar to the relief granted to other unfairly tried public employee-litigants. Finally, as applied to the special case of the President, the majority's argument merely points out that, were the Senate to convict the President without any kind of a trial, a constitutional crisis might well result. It hardly follows that the Court ought to refrain from upholding the Constitution in all impeachment cases. Nor does it follow that, in cases of Presidential impeachment, the Justices ought to abandon their constitutional responsibilities because the Senate has precipitated a crisis.
The majority's conclusion that "try" is incapable of meaningful judicial construction is not without irony. One might think that if any class of concepts would fall within the definitional abilities of the Judiciary, it would be that class having to do with procedural justice. Examination of the remaining question-whether proceedings in accordance with Senate Rule XI are compatible with the Impeachment Trial Clause-confirms this intuition.
"try." Contemporaneous commentary further supports this view. Hamilton, for example, stressed that a trial by so large a body as the Senate (which at the time promised to boast 26 members) necessitated that the proceedings not "be tied down to ... strict rules, either in the delineation of the offence by the prosecutors, or in the construction of it by the Judges .... " The Federalist No. 65, p. 441 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). In his extensive analysis of the Impeachment Trial Clause, Justice Story offered a nearly identical analysis, which is worth quoting at length.
men, then by mere lawyers." 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 765, p. 532 (3d ed. 1858).
It is also noteworthy that the delegation of factfinding by judicial and quasi-judicial bodies was hardly unknown to the Framers. Jefferson, at least, was aware that the House of Lords sometimes delegated factfinding in impeachment trials to committees and recommended use of the same to the Senate. T. Jefferson, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States § LIII (2d ed. 1812) ("The practice is to swear the witnesses in open House, and then examine them there: or a committee may be named, who shall examine them in committee ... "), reprinted in Jefferson's Parliamentary Writings, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series 424 (w. Howell ed. 1988). The States also had on occasion employed legislative committees to investigate whether to draw up articles of impeachment. See Hoffer & Hull, Impeachment in America, at 29, 33. More generally, in colonial governments and state legislatures, contemnors appeared before committees to answer the charges against them. See Groppi v. Leslie, 404 U. S. 496, 501 (1972). Federal courts likewise had appointed special masters and other factfinders "[f]rom the commencement of our Government." Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300, 312 (1920). Particularly in light of the Constitution's grant to each House of the power to "determine the Rules of its Proceedings," see Art. I, § 5, cl. 2, the existence of legislative and judicial delegation strongly suggests that the Impeachment Trial Clause was not designed to prevent employment of a factfinding committee.
the Constitution's command that the Senate "try all impeachments." Petitioner's challenge to his conviction must therefore fail.
4 Although our views might well produce identical results in most cases, the same objection may be raised against the prudential version of political question doctrine presented by JUSTICE SOUTER. According to the prudential view, judicial determination of whether the Senate has conducted an impeachment trial would interfere unacceptably with the Senate's work and should be avoided except where necessitated by the threat of grave harm to the constitutional order. As articulated, this position is missing its premise: No explanation is offered as to why it would show disrespect or cause disruption or embarrassment to review the action of the Senate in this case as opposed to, say, the enactment of legislation under the Commerce Clause. The Constitution requires the courts to determine the validity of statutes passed by Congress when they are challenged, even though such laws are passed with the firm belief that they are constitutional. The exercise of judicial review of this kind, with all of its attendant risk of interference and disrespect, is not conditioned upon a showing in each case that without it the Republic would be at risk. Some account is therefore needed as to why prudence does not counsel against judicial review in the typical case, yet does so in this case.
In any event, the prudential view cannot achieve its stated purpose.
The judgment it wishes to avoid-and the attendant disrespect and embarrassment-will inevitably be cast because the courts still will be required to distinguish cases on their merits. JUSTICE SOUTER states that the Court ought not to entertain petitioner's constitutional claim because "[i]t seems fair to conclude," post, at 253, that the Senate tried him. In other words, on the basis of a preliminary determination that the Senate has acted within the "broad boundaries" of the Impeachment Trial Clause, it is concluded that we must refrain from making that determination. At best, this approach offers only the illusion of deference and respect by substituting impressionistic assessment for constitutional analysis.
be found in the Constitution itself, which provides the Senate ample discretion to determine how best to try impeachments.
I agree with the Court that this case presents a nonjusticiable political question. Because my analysis differs somewhat from the Court's, however, I concur in its judgment by this separate opinion.
"Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question." Ibid.
Whatever considerations feature most prominently in a particular case, the political question doctrine is "essentially a function of the separation of powers," ibid., existing to restrain courts "from inappropriate interference in the business of the other branches of Government," United States v.
Munoz-Flores, 495 U. S. 385, 394 (1990), and deriving in large part from prudential concerns about the respect we owe the political departments, see Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U. S. 996, 1000 (1979) (Powell, J., concurring in judgment); A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch 125-126 (2d ed. 1986); Finkelstein, Judicial Self-Limitation, 37 Harv. L. Rev. 338, 344-345 (1924). Not all interference is inappropriate or disrespectful, however, and application of the doctrine ultimately turns, as Learned Hand put it, on "how importunately the occasion demands an answer." L. Hand, The Bill of Rights 15 (1958).
guy,'" ante, at 239 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment), judicial interference might well be appropriate. In such circumstances, the Senate's action might be so far beyond the scope of its constitutional authority, and the consequent impact on the Republic so great, as to merit a judicial response despite the prudential concerns that would ordinarily counsel silence. "The political question doctrine, a tool for maintenance of governmental order, will not be so applied as to promote only disorder." Baker, supra, at 215.

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 § 765
 v. 
 § 5
 v.

 v.