Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/741/628/90751/
Timestamp: 2020-07-11 06:26:32
Document Index: 530373006

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1597', '§ 1597', 'Art. 2', '§ 5503', '§ 5503', '§ 56', '§ 56', '§ 5503', '§ 56', '§ 1573', '§ 1573', '§ 1612', '§ 263']

Hugo Dennis, Jr., Lorraine Berry, Adelbert Bryan, Milton A.frett, Edgar Iles, Kenneth Mapp, Ruby Simmonds,lloyd L. Williams, Members of Thefifteenth Legislature of Thevirgin Islands v. Juan Luis, Governor of the Virgin Islands; Arnold M.golden, Acting Commissioner of Commerce, Appellants, 741 F.2d 628 (3d Cir. 1984) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Third Circuit › 1984 › Hugo Dennis, Jr., Lorraine Berry, Adelbert Bryan, Milton A.frett, Edgar Iles, Kenneth Mapp, Ruby Sim...
Hugo Dennis, Jr., Lorraine Berry, Adelbert Bryan, Milton A.frett, Edgar Iles, Kenneth Mapp, Ruby Simmonds,lloyd L. Williams, Members of Thefifteenth Legislature of Thevirgin Islands v. Juan Luis, Governor of the Virgin Islands; Arnold M.golden, Acting Commissioner of Commerce, Appellants, 741 F.2d 628 (3d Cir. 1984)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit - 741 F.2d 628 (3d Cir. 1984) Argued Feb. 27, 1984. Decided Aug. 10, 1984. Rehearing and Rehearing In BancDenied Sept. 11, 1984
Golden's name was submitted on April 21, 1983 to the Fifteenth Legislature for the position of Commissioner of Commerce in the Virgin Islands. Under the Revised Organic Act of 1954, Sec. 16(c), 48 U.S.C. § 1597(c), the legislature's advice and consent was necessary before an appointment to that position could be made. The legislature, however, on June 7, 1983 rejected Golden's nomination. Notwithstanding this rejection, the Governor thereafter on November 22, 1983 appointed Golden "acting" Commissioner of Commerce.
Following this appointment, eight of the fifteen members of the legislature filed suit in order to remove Golden from office. They asserted that " [t]he effect of the appointment ... is to usurp the doctrine of separation of powers and circumvent the process of advice and consent, thus violating a basic constitutional power conferred upon the Legislature ... by the United States Congress ...." Appendix ("App.") at 5.
In making the determination as to whether the threshold requirements of standing are satisfied, we must "accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party." Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S. Ct. 2197, 2206, 45 L. Ed. 2d 343 (1975). Moreover, throughout this standing inquiry, our focus will be "on the party seeking to get his complaint before a federal court and not on the issues he wishes to have adjudicated." Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 99, 88 S. Ct. 1942, 1952, 20 L. Ed. 2d 947 (1968).
Recently, in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 102 S. Ct. 752, 70 L. Ed. 2d 700 (1982), the Supreme Court set forth the minimum constitutional requirements necessary to establish standing. In short, a party seeking standing must demonstrate: (i) an actual or threatened injury that was (ii) caused by the defendant's actions and is (iii) capable of judicial redress. Id. at 472, 102 S. Ct. at 758.
In this case, the injury alleged by the legislators in their complaint is that the Governor's appointment of Golden as "acting" Commissioner of Commerce after his nomination as a permanent appointee had been rejected by the legislators "usurp [ed] the doctrine of separation of powers and circumvent [ed] the process of advice and consent, thus violating a basic constitutional power conferred upon the Legislature of the Virgin Islands ...." App. at 5. Thus, they argue that their votes rejecting Golden's nomination were nullified by Golden's subsequent appointment to "acting" Commissioner. The Governor and Golden, on the other hand, maintain that this alleged injury does not constitute a legally cognizable injury sufficient to confer standing. Specifically, they assert that " [p]laintiffs may be more angry than the average person about this matter, but intensity of feelings ... does not confer standing, and they allege no personal injury." Appellant's Brief at 3.
According to the legislators' allegations, the interest sought to be protected by this action is their unique statutory right to advise the Governor on executive appointments and to confer their approval or disapproval in this regard. Assuming these allegations to be true, we conclude that they allege a personal and legally cognizable interest peculiar to the legislators. See Riegle v. Federal Open Market Committee, 656 F.2d 873, 878-79 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1082, 102 S. Ct. 636, 70 L. Ed. 2d 616 (1981). The interest asserted is simply not a "generalized interest of all citizens in constitutional governance ...." Valley Forge Christian College, 102 S. Ct. at 769, quoting Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 217, 94 S. Ct. 2925, 2930, 41 L. Ed. 2d 706 (1974). Since the right to advise and consent has been vested only in members of the legislature, and since only members of the legislature are bringing this action, the allegation that this right has been usurped by the Governor and Golden are sufficiently personal to constitute an injury in fact, thus satisfying the minimum constitutional requirements of standing. We therefore believe that it is reasonable to hold that the legislators have standing.
Suits brought by legislators seeking to challenge executive actions and policies inevitably raise separation-of-powers concerns because of their political overtones. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190 (D.C. Cir. 1977), observed that:
The standing and political question doctrines are both facets of the broader concept of justiciability and "... either the absence of standing or the presence of a political question suffices to prevent the power of the federal judiciary from being invoked by the complaining party." Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 215, 94 S. Ct. 2925, 2929, 41 L. Ed. 2d 706 (1974).
By circumscribed equitable discretion, the court had in mind those situations " [w]hen a congressional plaintiff brings a suit involving circumstances in which legislative redress is not available or a private plaintiff would likely not qualify for standing ..." Id. at 882. They further stated:
In Reigle, a legislator sought injunctive relief in the form of an absolute prohibition of voting by Reserve Board members of the Federal Open Market Committee ("FOMC"). This relief was sought because Congressmen had failed in previous attempts to have it required that the five representatives of the Reserve Bank seats be limited to bank presidents appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Senator Riegle argued that " ' [b]y permitting the defendant individuals to act as officers of the United States when their nominations [had] never been submitted to the Senate,' [he was deprived] of his constitutional right to vote in determining the advice and consent of the Senate to the appointment of the five Reserve Bank members of the FOMC." Riegle, 656 F.2d at 877. Thus, in short, Senator Riegle challenged the procedure for constituting the FOMC which permitted nominations to be made without the advice and consent of the Senate. In resolving that dispute, the court concluded that
Senator Riegle's injury is of a political nature, deriving solely from the acts or omissions of his colleagues and not in any way from the actions of the named defendants. Reuss v. Balles, 584 F.2d 461, 468 (D.C. Cir. 1978). What the Court must decide is whether or not a Congressman from either chamber has standing to challenge the constitutionality of a statutory provision on which he has failed to persuade his colleagues in the past and remains free to attempt persuasion in the future. The Court concludes that to confer standing upon such a Congressman without more would improperly interfere with the legislative process.
Riegle, 656 F.2d at 877, quoting Riegle v. Federal Open Market Committee, 84 F.R.D. 114 (D.D.C. 1979) (Gesell, J.) (emphasis added).
As to the issue of the Governor's power to make a recess appointment of Golden, the majority and the dissent travel significantly different routes. The fundamental difference between the majority and the dissent is that, in our view, the dissent confuses the obligation of the treasurer to withhold payments with the power of the Governor to make appointments. We believe that the dissent seriously dilutes the appointment power which the Governor has been granted generally under the Revised Organic Act of 1954, Sec. 16(c), 48 U.S.C. § 1597(c) and particularly in 3 V.I.C. Sec. 64 which concerns recess appointments.
Section 64 is a replication of U.S.Const. Art. 2, Sec. 2, cl. 3 and 5 U.S.C. § 5503 combined, which provide:
5 U.S.C. § 5503 Recess Appointments:
The act was amended, 5 U.S.C. § 56, in 1940 to "render the existing prohibition on the payment of salaries more flexible." H.Rept. 2646, 76th Cong., 3d sess., p. 1. Though amended, the statute was again interpreted in 1960 by another U.S. Attorney General as recognizing the President's appointment power to be separate from the recess appointment payment provision of 5 U.S.C. § 56, which is now codified as 5 U.S.C. § 5503. He noted that:
5 U.S.C. § 56, which originally prohibited the payment of appropriated funds as salary to a person who received a recess appointment if the vacancy existed while the Senate was in session implicitly assumed that the power existed, but sought to render it ineffective by prohibiting the payment of the salary to the person so appointed.
48 U.S.C. § 1573(a) (emphasis added). The Rules of the Senate for the Virgin Islands Fifteenth Legislature (the "Senate Rules"), Chapter 2, section 201(a) defines a "regular session" as one which
In addition to the regular sessions, the Governor has the authority pursuant to the Revised Organic Act of 1954, section 7, to "call special sessions of the legislature at any time when in his opinion the public interest may require it." 48 U.S.C. § 1573(a) (emphasis added). Furthermore, the Senate Rules, Chapter 2, section 201(b) also permit the President of the legislature to "convene the Legislature at his or her discretion, but not after adjournment sine die."
Although I agree with the majority that Arnold Golden may properly be enjoined from serving as the Acting Commissioner of Commerce of the Virgin Islands, I reach that conclusion by a considerably different route. Thus I write separately not only because I am concerned about the majority's approach to adjudicating a conflict between the executive and legislative branches of the Virgin Islands, but also because I am persuaded that, on the merits, the majority has misapplied provisions of the Virgin Islands Code that are applicable to this case. Rather than rely on a questionable construction of the ambiguous language of 3 V.I.C. Sec. 64(a), I would hold more narrowly that under Secs. 64(b) (3) and (c) Mr. Golden could not legally serve as acting commissioner after the Senate had rejected his appointment as permanent commissioner. Insofar as the majority suggests that even a portion of Mr. Golden's tenure as acting commissioner was proper under the Code, I must respectfully dissent.
As is shown by the experience of the District of Columbia Circuit with congressional plaintiffs, the fundamental problem is to develop workable legal criteria for exercising judicial restraint. Before the Supreme Court's decision in Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996, 100 S. Ct. 533, 62 L. Ed. 2d 428 (1979) (mem. op.), the District of Columbia Circuit treated the justiciability problem as a question of "legislator standing." In the mid-1970's, the Court of Appeals applied a rather pliable rule of legislator standing, permitting, for example, Senator Kennedy to challenge President Nixon's pocket veto of a health care bill, simply because the Senator sought to "vindicate the effectiveness of his vote." Kennedy v. Sampson, 511 F.2d 430, 436 (D.C. Cir. 1974). By the late 1970's, however, the Court of Appeals had developed a stricter rule, grounded in the separation-of-powers doctrine. See Goldwater v. Carter, 617 F.2d 697, 702 (D.C. Cir.) (per curiam) (en banc), judgment vacated on other grounds, 444 U.S. 996, 100 S. Ct. 533, 62 L. Ed. 2d 428 (1979); Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190 (D.C. Cir. 1977). The en banc Goldwater Court provided the clearest pronouncement of the restrictive test for legislator standing:
After the Supreme Court's decision in Goldwater, a panel of the District of Columbia Circuit developed a two-step approach to determine the justiciability of actions brought by congressional plaintiffs. In Riegle v. Federal Open Market Comm., 656 F.2d 873 (D.C. Cir. 1981), the Court declared that the standing of congressional plaintiffs should be analyzed under traditional doctrines of private party standing. Relying on an article by Judge McGowan, Congressmen in Court, 15 Ga.L.Rev. 241 (1981), Riegle held that separation-of-powers problems should be dealt with through the exercise of the court's "remedial discretion." When legislator-plaintiffs have available "in house" or "collegial remedies" in the political process, courts should refrain from using their equitable powers lest they "improperly interfere with the legislative process."1 Riegle, supra, 656 F.2d at 882.
In my view, the Riegle analysis would appear acceptable, as long as the en banc Goldwater criteria for legislator standing are incorporated in that analysis.2 Keeping in mind that the essential point of these doctrines is to encourage political solutions to political problems, I believe a two-part test should be applied. First, to establish standing, legislator-plaintiffs must allege injury unique to their status as legislators by showing, in Goldwater's terms, "a complete nullification [of a past vote] or withdrawal of a voting opportunity." 617 F.2d at 702. Legislators who claim withdrawal of an opportunity to vote must show a clearly vested right to vote. But if they claim nullification of a past vote, they must distinguish their interest as legislators from the general interest of citizens in "governmental observance of the Constitution." Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 482, 102 S. Ct. 752, 763, 70 L. Ed. 2d 700 (1982). The legislators may show, as in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 59 S. Ct. 972, 83 L. Ed. 1385 (1939), that as an aggregate they constitute a controlling bloc of the legislative branch. In Coleman, the Kansas Senate had split evenly over ratification of a constitutional amendment, but the tie had been broken and the amendment approved because of the vote of the Lieutenant Governor. Suit was filed by the twenty senators who voted against ratification, and the Supreme Court held that the group had standing:
307 U.S. at 438, 59 S. Ct. at 975. As a bloc, the Coleman plaintiffs could identify an injury to the legislative branch. Their aggregate injury was therefore unlike the injury inflicted on all citizens when the law is violated, since it was grounded in their status as members of the state senate.
In light of Sec. 64(c), it becomes apparent that another provision--forbidding a recess appointment of a rejected nominee--squarely applies to the case before us. Under 3 V.I.C. Sec. 64(b) (3) (emphasis added):
Although this section of the Code is expressed in terms of compensation, it is nonetheless a substantive limitation on the appointment powers of the Governor. Thus, the convoluted structure of Sec. 64(b) (3) should not be permitted to obscure its relevance to Golden's situation: whatever else the Governor could do to fill the vacancy at the Commerce Department pending approval of a permanent commissioner, he could not fill that vacancy with a recess commissioner--or, as Sec. 64(c) shows, an acting commissioner--whose nomination had been rejected by the legislature.4 Once rejected for a permanent appointment, Golden could not validly serve as head of the Commerce Department, unless his nomination had been duly confirmed upon resubmission of his name to the legislature.
Given the plain command of Secs. 64(b) (3) and (c), I believe that the legislator-plaintiffs in this case had standing and could rely on clearly established law. Because the plaintiffs are eight of the ten senators who voted against Golden's appointment, they constitute a controlling bloc in the same sense as the twenty senators in Coleman. As in Coleman, the senators in the case before us had votes "sufficient to defeat [the challenged action]"; thus their votes, as a bloc, were "held for naught." The senators could base standing on the withdrawal of a voting opportunity, since Golden's name had to be resubmitted to the legislature before he could validly head the Commerce Department in any capacity. Additionally, there can be no question that the political process had run its course, since Secs. 64(b) (3) and (c) provide an unambiguous rule governing this case. Finally, it is of crucial importance that the governor's appointee was precisely the individual rejected by the legislators. Thus this dispute is not an attempt to force the courts to intervene in a purely political controversy between coordinate branches of government, but rather involves an allegation that the constitutional authority of the legislature had been preempted.
Another shortcoming in the majority's analysis is its reliance on a broad construction of a highly ambiguous section of the Code, despite the ready basis for a narrow holding predicated on the plain meaning of another provision. The majority interprets the term "session" in Sec. 64(a) as including only "regular" sessions, not "special" ones. This conclusion rests solely on the conjecture that a different conclusion would produce "utter chaos" in the government of the Virgin Islands, Maj.Op. at 637, a matter about which we, as appellate judges operating primarily on the mainland, have little expertise. Having construed "session" to mean "regular session," the majority then concludes that the Senate Rules define "regular session" to mean any one of the four-week or six-week periods specified as times when a session "shall continue." As I read the Senate Rules, this language could just as sensibly be interpreted to mean that a "regular session" extends over a full year--as is the case in the United States Congress--beginning annually in January, with the Senate convening mandatorily during three specified periods. The majority's assumption that a "session" consists of some subpart of the year demarked by the Senate Rules is unnecessarily speculative because a more narrow holding, based on the clear command of Secs. 64(b) (3) and (c), is readily at hand.6
My final concern with the majority's analysis is jurisprudential. In the ordinary civil case, it may be appropriate for a court to engage in the interstitial interpretation necessary to give meaning to language as ambiguous as that of Sec. 64(a). See generally, Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527 (1947). But this case does not arise out of a clash between two private parties, or between a private party and the government. Rather, it involves a political struggle between the executive and legislative branches. When courts deal with the delicate working relationship between two coordinate branches, they should hesitate before devising solutions that may alter the balance of political power. I fear that the majority's solution to the ambiguities of Sec. 64(a) will establish an unfortunate precedent for future clashes between the Governor and the Senate of the Virgin Islands.7 Were we forced to rely on Sec. 64(a) to resolve this case, I would contend that the law is unclear and that the legislators must come forward with evidence of an attempted political solution before invoking the aid of the courts. Thus, I join in the conclusion that judicial relief is appropriate in this case not because of the open-ended language of Sec. 64(a), but because the political branches have already defined a clear rule in the terms of Secs. 64(b) (3) and (c).
See Riegle v. Federal Open Market Committee, 656 F.2d 873 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1082, 102 S. Ct. 636, 70 L. Ed. 2d 616 (1981)
During oral argument counsel for the legislators questioned whether the traditional concept of standing is applicable here given the hybrid nature of the United States District Court of the Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands District Court has a dual role. It sits both as a traditional state court adjudicating purely local and non-federal issues and as a traditional United States District Court adjudicating purely local and non-federal issues and as a traditional United States District Court adjudicating solely issues of federal law. See Revised Organic Act of 1954, Sec. 22, 48 U.S.C. § 1612. For purposes of this appeal, we find this a distinction without substance concerning the issue of standing
In some instances, Congressmen as plaintiffs in suits against the executive branch have been successful in obtaining standing and in receiving judicial relief. See Kennedy v. Sampson, 511 F.2d 430 (D.C. Cir. 1974); Goldwater v. Carter, 617 F.2d 697 (D.C. Cir.) (en banc) (per curiam), vacated, 444 U.S. 996, 100 S. Ct. 533, 62 L. Ed. 2d 428 (1979); American Federation of Government Employees v. Pierce, 697 F.2d 303 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (per curiam)
In other instances, however, courts have held that Congressmen did not have standing to litigate their complaints. See Public Citizen v. Sampson, 379 F. Supp. 662 (D.D.C. 1974); aff'd mem., 515 F.2d 1018 (D.C. Cir. 1975); Harrington v. Bush, 553 F.2d 190 (D.C. Cir. 1977); Reuss v. Balles, 584 F.2d 461 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 997, 99 S. Ct. 598, 58 L. Ed. 2d 670 (1978).
Riegle's complaint would have been solved if his colleagues had amended 12 U.S.C. § 263(a) "to require that the five Reserve Bank members of the FOMC be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate pursuant to the Appointments clause. United States Constitution, article II, sec. 2, cl. 2." Riegle, 656 F.2d at 876
Judges Bork and Scalia have expressed vigorous opposition to Riegle's two-step analysis. See Crockett v. Reagan, 720 F.2d 1355, 1357 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (Bork, J., concurring); Van Der Jagt v. O'Neill, 699 F.2d 1166, 1177-85 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (Bork, J., concurring); Moore v. U.S., 723 F.2d 946 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (Scalia, J., concurring). They contend that the justiciability of a legislator's lawsuit turns on the power of the court to hear the case under Article III of the Constitution and must therefore be addressed in terms of the mandatory rules of the standing doctrine, rather than the discretionary rules of equitable restraint
The views expressed by a majority of the Justices in the Supreme Court's Goldwater decision are not inconsistent with the Court of Appeals criteria. Both Justice Powell's theory that the case would not be "ripe" until political avenues of redress had been exhausted. 444 U.S. at 997-98, 100 S. Ct. at 533-534 and Justice Rehnquist's theory (joined by Chief Justice Burger, and Justices Stewart and Stevens) that the case involved a "nonjusticiable political question," 444 U.S. at 1002-04, 100 S. Ct. at 536-537, focus on the same concerns identified somewhat more precisely by the District of Columbia Circuit
In his oral opinion, the district judge expressly relied on Sec. 64(b) (3) as an alternative basis for his decision. See Dennis, supra, Tr. at 12, 15; App. at 135, 138. The majority does not explain why it has not employed the district court's alternative rationale