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Coleman v. Miller (full text) :: 307 U.S. 433 (1939) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
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U.S. Supreme CourtColeman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939)Coleman v. MillerNo. 7Argued October 10, 1938Reargued April 17, 18, 1939Decided June 5, 1939307 U.S. 433CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF KANSAS
(3) This Court has jurisdiction to review the decision of the state court by certiorari, under Jud.Code § 237(b). P. 307 U. S. 438. Page 307 U. S. 434
Certiorari, 303 U.S. 632, to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Kansas denying a writ of mandamus, applied for in that court by senators of the State and members of its House of Representatives for the purpose of compelling the Secretary of the Senate to erase an endorsement purporting to show that a resolution for the Page 307 U. S. 435 ratification of a proposal to amend the Federal Constitution had passed the Senate, and to restrain the officers of the Senate and the other house of the legislature from signing the resolution and the Secretary of Kansas from authenticating it and delivering it to the Governor.
In June, 1924, the Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution, known as the Child Labor Amendment. [Footnote 1] In January, 1925, the Legislature of Kansas adopted a resolution rejecting the proposed amendment and a certified copy of the resolution was sent to the Secretary of State of the United States. In January, 1937, a resolution known as "Senate Concurrent Resolution Page 307 U. S. 436 No. 3" was introduced in the Senate of Kansas ratifying the proposed amendment. There were forty senators. When the resolution came up for consideration, twenty senators voted in favor of its adoption and twenty voted against it. The Lieutenant Governor, the presiding officer of the Senate, then cast his vote in favor of the resolution. The resolution was later adopted by the House of Representatives on the vote of a majority of its members.
An alternative writ was issued. Later the Senate passed a resolution directing the Attorney General to enter the appearance of the State and to represent the State as its interests might appear. Answers were filed Page 307 U. S. 437 on behalf of the defendants other than the State, and plaintiffs made their reply.
The state court held that it had jurisdiction; that "the right of the parties to maintain the action is beyond question." [Footnote 2] The state court thus determined in substance that members of the legislature had standing to seek, and the court had jurisdiction to grant, mandamus to compel a proper record of legislative action. Had the questions been solely state questions, the matter would Page 307 U. S. 438 have ended there. But the questions raised in the instant case arose under the Federal Constitution, and these questions were entertained and decided by the state court. They arose under Article V of the Constitution, which alone conferred the power to amend and determined the manner in which that power could be exercised. Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221, 253 U. S. 227; Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130, 258 U. S. 137. Whether any or all of the questions thus raised and decided are deemed to be justiciable or political, they are exclusively federal questions, and not state questions.
The contention to the contrary is answered by our decisions in Hawke v. Smith, supra, and Leser v. Garnett, Page 307 U. S. 439 supra. In Hawke v. Smith, supra, the plaintiff in error, suing as a "citizen and elector of the State of Ohio, and as a taxpayer and elector of the County of Hamilton," on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, filed a petition for an injunction in the state court to restrain the Secretary of State from spending the public money in preparing and printing ballots for submission of a referendum to the electors on the question of the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. A demurrer to the petition was sustained in the lower court, and its judgment was affirmed by the intermediate appellate court and the Supreme Court of the State. This Court entertained jurisdiction and, holding that the state court had erred in deciding that the State had authority to require the submission of the ratification to a referendum, reversed the judgment.
"The petitioners contended, on several grounds, that the amendment had not become part of the federal Constitution. The trial court overruled the contentions, and dismissed the petition. Its judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the state, 139 Md. 46, 114 A. 840, and the case comes here on writ of error. That writ must be dismissed, but the petition for a writ of certiorari, also duly filed, is granted. The laws of Maryland authorized such a suit by a qualified voter against the board of registry. Whether the Nineteenth Amendment has become Page 307 U. S. 440 part of the federal Constitution is the question presented for decision."
That the question of our jurisdiction in Leser v. Garnett, supra, was decided upon deliberate consideration is sufficiently shown by the fact that there was a motion to dismiss the writ of error for the want of jurisdiction and opposition to the grant of certiorari. The decision is the more striking because, on the same day, in an opinion immediately preceding which was prepared for the Court by the same Justice, [Footnote 4] jurisdiction had been denied to a federal court (the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia) of a suit by citizens of the United States, taxpayers, and members of a voluntary association organized to support the Constitution, in which it was sought to have the Nineteenth Amendment declared unconstitutional and to enjoin the Secretary of State from proclaiming its ratification and the Attorney General from taking steps to enforce it. Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126. The Court held that the plaintiffs' alleged interest in the question submitted was not such as to afford a basis for the proceeding; that the plaintiffs had only the right possessed by every citizen "to require that the government be administered according to law, and that the public moneys be not wasted," and that this general right did not entitle a private citizen to bring such a suit as the one in question in the federal courts. [Footnote 5] It Page 307 U. S. 441 would be difficult to imagine a situation in which the adequacy of the petitioners' interest to invoke our appellate jurisdiction in Leser v. Garnett, supra, could have been more sharply presented.
We are of the opinion that Hawke v. Smith and Leser v. Garnett, supra, are controlling authorities, but, in view of the wide range the discussion has taken, we may refer to some other instances in which the question of what constitutes a sufficient interest to enable one to invoke our appellate jurisdiction has been involved. The principle that the applicant must show a legal interest in the controversy has been maintained. It has been applied repeatedly in cases where municipal corporations have challenged state legislation affecting their alleged rights and obligations. Being but creatures of the State, municipal corporations have no standing to invoke the contract clause or the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution in opposition to the will of their creator. [Footnote 6] But there Page 307 U. S. 442 has been recognition of the legitimate interest public officials and administrative commissions, federal and state, to resist the endeavor to prevent the enforcement of statutes in relation to which they have official duties. Under the Urgent Deficiencies Act, [Footnote 7] the Interstate Commerce Commission, and commissions representing interested States which have intervened, are entitled as "aggrieved parties" to an appeal to this Court from a decree setting aside an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission, though the United States refuses to join in the appeal. Interstate Commerce Commission v. Oregon-Washington R. & N. Co., 288 U. S. 14. So, this Court may grant certiorari, on the application of the Federal Trade Commission, to review decisions setting aside its orders. [Footnote 8] Federal Trade Commission v. Curtis Publishing Co., 260 U. S. 568. Analogous provisions authorize certiorari to review decisions against the National Labor Relations Board. [Footnote 9] Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Corp., 301 U. S. 1. Under § 266 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 380, where an injunction is sought to restrain the enforcement of a statute of a State or an order of its administrative board or commission, upon the ground of invalidity under the Federal Constitution, the right of direct appeal to this Court from the decree of the required three judges is accorded whether the injunction be granted or denied. Hence, in case the injunction is granted, the state board is entitled to appeal. See, for example, South Carolina Highway Department v. Barnwell Brothers, 303 U. S. 177.
The question of our authority to grant certiorari, on the application of state officers, to review decisions of state courts declaring state statutes, which these officers Page 307 U. S. 443 seek to enforce, to be repugnant to the Federal Constitution, has been carefully considered and our jurisdiction in that class of cases has been sustained. The original Judiciary Act of 1789 provided in § 25 [Footnote 10] for the review by this Court of a judgment of a state court
In Blodgett v. Silberman, 277 U. S. 1, 277 U. S. 7, the Court granted certiorari on the application of the State Tax Commissioner of Connecticut, who sought review of the decision of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State so far as it denied the right created by its statute to tax the transfer of certain securities, which had been placed for safekeeping in New York, on the ground that they Page 307 U. S. 444 were not within the taxing jurisdiction of Connecticut. Entertaining jurisdiction, this Court reversed the judgment in that respect. Id., p. 277 U. S. 18.
The question received most careful consideration in the case of Boynton v. Hutchinson Gas Co., 291 U.S. 656, where the Supreme Court of Kansas had held a state statute to be repugnant to the Federal Constitution, and the Attorney General of the State applied for certiorari. His application was opposed upon the ground that he had merely an official interest in the controversy, and the decisions were invoked upon which the Government relies in challenging our jurisdiction in the instant case. [Footnote 12] Because of its importance, and contrary to our usual practice, the Court directed oral argument on the question whether certiorari should be granted, and, after that argument, upon mature deliberation, granted the writ. The writ was subsequently dismissed, but only because of a failure of the record to show service of summons and severance upon the appellees in the state court who were not parties to the proceedings here. 292 U.S. 601. This decision with respect to the scope of our jurisdiction has been followed in later cases. In Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U. S. 587, we granted certiorari on an application by the warden of a city prison to review the decision of the Court of Appeals of the State on habeas corpus, ruling that the minimum wage law of the State violated the Federal Constitution. This Court decided the case on the merits. In Kelly v. Washington ex rel. Foss Co., 302 U. S. 1, we granted certiorari, on the application of the state authorities charged with the enforcement of the state law relating to the inspection and regulation of vessels, to review the decision of the state court holding the statute invalid in its application to navigable waters. We concluded that the state act had a permissible field of operation, and the decision of the Page 307 U. S. 445 state court in holding the statute completely unenforceable in deference to federal law was reversed.
In Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, we granted certiorari on the application of one who was an "elector," as well as a "citizen" and "taxpayer," and who assailed under the Federal Constitution a state statute establishing congressional districts. Passing upon the merits, we held that the function of a state legislature in prescribing the time, place, and manner of holding elections for representatives Page 307 U. S. 446 in Congress under Article I, § 4 was a lawmaking function in which the veto power of the state governor participates if, under the state constitution, the governor has that power in the course of the making of state laws, and accordingly reversed the judgment of the state court. We took jurisdiction on certiorari in a similar case from New York where the petitioners were "citizens and voters of the State" who had sought a mandamus to compel the Secretary of New York to certify that representatives in Congress were to be elected in the congressional districts as defined by a concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly of the legislature. There, the state court, construing the provision of the Federal Constitution as contemplating the exercise of the lawmaking power, had sustained the defense that the concurrent resolution was ineffective, as it had not been submitted to the Governor for approval, and refused the writ of mandamus. We affirmed the judgment. Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375.
Second. The participation of the Lieutenant Governor. -- Petitioners contend that, in the light of the powers and duties of the Lieutenant Governor and his relation to the Senate under the state constitution, as construed by the supreme court of the state, the Lieutenant Governor was not a part of the "legislature," so that, under Article V of the Federal Constitution, he could be permitted to have a deciding vote on the ratification of the Page 307 U. S. 447 proposed amendment when the senate was equally divided.
1. The state court adopted the view expressed by text writers that a state legislature which has rejected an amendment proposed by the Congress may later ratify. [Footnote 13] The argument in support of that view is that Article V says nothing of rejection, but speaks only of ratification, and provides that a proposed amendment shall be valid as part of the Constitution when ratified by three-fourths of the States; that the power to ratify is thus conferred upon the State by the Constitution, and, as a ratifying power, persists despite a previous rejection. The opposing view proceeds on an assumption that, if ratification by "Conventions" were prescribed by the Congress, a convention could not reject and, having adjourned sine die, be reassembled and ratify. It is also premised, in accordance with views expressed by text writers, [Footnote 14] that ratification, if once given, cannot afterwards be rescinded, and the amendment rejected, and it is urged that the same effect in the exhaustion of the State's power to act should be ascribed to rejection; that a State can act "but once, either by convention or through its legislature." Page 307 U. S. 448
Historic instances are cited. In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was rejected by the legislature of New Jersey, which subsequently ratified it, but the question did not become important, as ratification by the requisite number of States had already been proclaimed. [Footnote 15] The question did arise in connection with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The legislatures of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina had rejected the amendment in November and December, 1866. [Footnote 16] New governments were erected in those States (and in others) under the direction of Congress. [Footnote 17] The new legislatures ratified the amendment, that of North Carolina on July 4, 1868, that of South Carolina on July 9, 1868, and that of Georgia on July 21, 1868. [Footnote 18] Ohio and New Jersey first ratified and then passed resolutions withdrawing their consent. [Footnote 19] As there were then thirty-seven States, twenty-eight were needed to constitute the requisite three-fourths. On July 9, 1868, the Congress adopted a resolution requesting the Secretary of State to communicate "a list of the States of the Union whose legislatures have ratified the fourteenth article of amendment," [Footnote 20] and, in Secretary Seward's report, attention was called to the action of Ohio and New Jersey. [Footnote 21] On July 20th, Secretary Seward issued a proclamation reciting the ratification by twenty-eight States, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and New Jersey, and stating that it appeared that Ohio and New Jersey had since passed resolutions withdrawing their consent, and that "it is Page 307 U. S. 449 deemed a matter of doubt and uncertainty whether such resolutions are not irregular, invalid, and therefore ineffectual." The Secretary certified that, if the ratifying resolutions of Ohio and New Jersey were still in full force and effect notwithstanding the attempted withdrawal, the amendment had become a part of the Constitution. [Footnote 22] On the following day the Congress adopted a concurrent resolution which, reciting that three-fourths of the States having ratified (the list including North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and New Jersey), [Footnote 23] declared the Fourteenth Amendment to be a part of the Constitution, and that it should be duly promulgated as such by the Secretary of State. Accordingly, Secretary Seward, on July 28th, issued his proclamation embracing the States mentioned in the congressional resolution and adding Georgia. [Footnote 24]
Thus, the political departments of the Government dealt with the effect both of previous rejection and of attempted withdrawal and determined that both were ineffectual in the presence of an actual ratification. [Footnote 25] While there were special circumstances, because of the action of the Congress in relation to the governments of the rejecting States (North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia), these circumstances were not recited in proclaiming ratification, and the previous action taken in these States was set forth in the proclamation as actual previous rejections by the respective legislatures. This Page 307 U. S. 450 decision by the political departments of the Government as to the validity of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment has been accepted.
"Whenever official notice is received at the Department of State that any amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States has been adopted according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Secretary of State shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the States by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States. [Footnote 27] "Page 307 U. S. 451
2. The more serious question is whether the proposal by the Congress of the Amendment had lost its vitality through lapse of time, and hence it could not be ratified by the Kansas legislature in 1937. The argument of petitioners stresses the fact that nearly thirteen years elapsed between the proposal in 1924 and the ratification in question. It is said that, when the amendment was proposed, there was a definitely adverse popular sentiment, and that, at the end of 1925 there had been rejection by both houses of the legislatures of sixteen States, and ratification by only four States, and that it was not until about 1933 that an aggressive campaign was started in favor of the amendment. In reply, it is urged that Congress did not fix a limit of time for ratification, and that an unreasonably long time had not elapsed since the submission; that the conditions which gave rise to the amendment had not been eliminated; that the prevalence of child labor, the diversity of state laws, and the disparity in their administration, with the resulting competitive inequalities, continued to exist. Reference is also made to the fact that a number of the States have treated the amendment as still pending, and that, in the proceedings of the national government, there have been indications of the same view. [Footnote 28] It is said that there were fourteen ratifications in 1933, four in 1935, one in 1936, and three in 1937. Page 307 U. S. 452
It is true that, in Dillon v. Gloss, supra, the Court said that nothing was found in Article V which suggested that an amendment, once proposed, was to be open to ratification for all time, or that ratification in some States might be separated from that in others by many years, and yet be effective; that there was a strong suggestion to the contrary in that proposal and ratification were but succeeding steps in a single endeavor; that, as amendments were deemed to be prompted by necessity, they should be considered and disposed of presently, and that there is a fair implication that ratification must be sufficiently contemporaneous in the required number of States to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same period, and hence that ratification must be within some reasonable time after the proposal. These considerations were cogent reasons for the decision in Dillon v. Gloss, supra, that the Congress had the power to fix a reasonable time for ratification. But it does not follow that, whenever Congress has not exercised that power, the Court should take upon itself the responsibility of deciding what constitutes Page 307 U. S. 453 a reasonable time and determine accordingly the validity of ratifications. That question was not involved in Dillon v. Gloss, supra, and, in accordance with familiar principle, what was there said must be read in the light of the point decided.
That statement is pertinent, but there are additional matters to be examined and weighed. When a proposed amendment springs from a conception of economic needs, it would be necessary, in determining whether a reasonable time had elapsed since its submission, to consider the economic conditions prevailing in the country, whether these had so far changed since the submission as to make the proposal no longer responsive to the conception which inspired it, or whether conditions were such as to intensify the feeling of need and the appropriateness of the proposed remedial action. In short, the question of a reasonable time in many cases would involve, as in this case it does involve, an appraisal of a great variety of relevant conditions, political, social, and economic, which can hardly be said to be within the appropriate range of evidence receivable in a court of justice Page 307 U. S. 454 and as to which it would be an extravagant extension of judicial authority to assert judicial notice as the basis of deciding a controversy with respect to the validity of an amendment actually ratified. On the other hand, these conditions are appropriate for the consideration of the political departments of the Government. The questions they involve are essentially political, and not justiciable. They can be decided by the Congress with the full knowledge and appreciation ascribed to the national legislature of the political, social, and economic conditions which have prevailed during the period since the submission of the amendment.
It would unduly lengthen this opinion to attempt to review our decisions as to the class of questions deemed to be political and not justiciable. In determining whether a question falls within that category, the appropriateness under our system of government of attributing finality to the action of the political departments and also the lack of satisfactory criteria for a judicial determination Page 307 U. S. 455 are dominant considerations. [Footnote 30] There are many illustrations in the field of our conduct of foreign relations where there are "considerations of policy, considerations of extreme magnitude, and certainly entirely incompetent to the examination and decision of a court of justice." Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall.199, 3 U. S. 260. [Footnote 31] Questions involving similar considerations are found in the government of our internal affairs. Thus, under Article IV, section 4, of the Constitution, providing that the United States "shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," we have held that it rests with the Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State and whether or not it is republican in form. Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1, 48 U. S. 42. In that case, Chief Justice Taney observed that
So it was held in the same case that, under the provision of the same Article for the protection of each of the States "against domestic violence," it rested with the Congress "to determine upon the means proper to be adopted to fulfill this guarantee." Id., p. 48 U. S. 43. So, in Pacific Telephone Company v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118, we considered that questions arising under the guaranty of Page 307 U. S. 456 a republican form of government had long since been "definitely determined to be political and governmental," and hence that the question whether the government of Oregon had ceased to be republican in form because of a constitutional amendment by which the people reserved to themselves power to propose and enact laws independent of the legislative assembly, and also to approve or reject any act of that body, was a question for the determination of the Congress. It would be finally settled when the Congress admitted the senators and representatives of the State.
Although, for reasons to be stated by MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, we believe this cause should be dismissed, the ruling of the Court just announced removes from the case the question of petitioners' standing to sue. Under the compulsion of that ruling, [Footnote 2/1] MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS, Page 307 U. S. 457 MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, and I have participated in the discussion of other questions considered by the Court, and we concur in the result reached, but for somewhat different reasons.
The Constitution grants Congress exclusive power to control submission of constitutional amendments. Final determination by Congress that ratification by three-fourths of the States has taken place "is conclusive upon the courts." [Footnote 2/2] In the exercise of that power, Congress, of course, is governed by the Constitution. However, whether submission, intervening procedure, or Congressional determination of ratification conforms to the commands of the Constitution calls for decisions by a "political department" of questions of a type which this Court has frequently designated "political." And decision of a "political question" by the "political department" to which the Constitution has committed it "conclusively binds the judges, as well as all other officers, citizens, and subjects of . . . government." [Footnote 2/3] Proclamation under authority of Congress that an amendment has been ratified will carry with it a solemn insurance by the Congress that ratification has taken place as the Constitution commands. Upon this assurance, a proclaimed amendment must be accepted as a part of the Page 307 U. S. 458 Constitution, leaving to the judiciary its traditional authority of interpretation. [Footnote 2/4] To the extent that the Court's opinion in the present case even impliedly assumes a power to make judicial interpretation of the exclusive constitutional authority of Congress over submission and ratification of amendments, we are unable to agree.
The Court here treats the amending process of the Constitution, in some respects, as subject to judicial construction, in others as subject to the final authority of the Congress. There is no disapproval of the conclusion arrived at in Dillon v. Gloss, [Footnote 2/5] that the Constitution impliedly requires that a properly submitted amendment must die unless ratified within a "reasonable time." Nor does the Court now disapprove its prior assumption of power to make such a pronouncement. And it is not made clear that only Congress has constitutional power to determine if there is any such implication in Article V of the Constitution. On the other hand, the Court's opinion declares that Congress has the exclusive power to Page 307 U. S. 459 decide the "political questions" of whether a State whose legislature has once acted upon a proposed amendment may subsequently reverse its position, and whether, in the circumstances of such a case as this, an amendment is dead because an "unreasonable" time has elapsed. Such division between the political and judicial branches of the government is made by Article V, which grants power over the amending of the Constitution to Congress alone. Undivided control of that process has been given by the Article exclusively and completely to Congress. The process itself is "political" in its entirety, from submission until an amendment becomes part of the Constitution, and is not subject to judicial guidance, control, or interference at any point.
Congress, possessing exclusive power over the amending process, cannot be bound by, and is under no duty to accept, the pronouncements upon that exclusive power by this Court or by the Kansas courts. Neither State nor Federal courts can review that power. Therefore, any judicial expression amounting to more than mere acknowledgment of exclusive Congressional power over the political process of amendment is a mere admonition to Page 307 U. S. 460 the Congress in the nature of an advisory opinion, given wholly without constitutional authority.
In endowing this Court with "judicial Power," the Constitution presupposed an historic content for that phrase, and relied on assumption by the judiciary of authority only over issues which are appropriate for disposition by judges. The Constitution further explicitly indicated the limited area within which judicial action was to move -- however far-reaching the consequences of action within that area -- by extending "judicial Power" only to "Cases" and "Controversies." Both by what they said and by what they implied, the framers of the Judiciary Article gave merely the outlines of what were to them the familiar operations of the English judicial system and its manifestations on this side of the ocean before the Union. Judicial power could come into play only in matters that were the traditional concern of the courts at Westminster, and only if they arose in ways that to the expert feel of lawyers constituted "Cases" or "Controversies." It was not for courts to meddle with matters that require no subtlety to be identified as political issues. [Footnote 3/1] And, even as to the kinds of questions which were the staple of judicial business, it was not for courts to pass upon them as abstract intellectual problems, but only if a concrete living contest between adversaries called for the arbitrament of law. Compare Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346; Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568; Willing Chicago Page 307 U. S. 461 Auditorium Assn., 277 U. S. 274; Nashville, C. & St.L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249.
Of all this the present controversy furnishes abundant illustration. Twenty-one members of the Kansas Senate and three members of its House of Representatives brought an original mandamus proceeding in the Supreme Court of that State to compel the Secretary of its Senate to erase an endorsement on Kansas "Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3" of January 1937, to the effect that it had been passed by the Senate, and instead to endorse thereon the words "not passed." They also sought to restrain the officers of both Senate and House from authenticating and delivering it to the Governor of the State for transmission to the Secretary of the United States. These Kansas legislators resorted to their Supreme Court claiming that there was no longer an amendment open for ratification by Kansas, and that, in any event, it had not been ratified by the "legislature" of Page 307 U. S. 462 Kansas, the constitutional organ for such ratification. See Article V of the Constitution of the United States. The Kansas Supreme Court held that the Kansas legislators had a right to its judgment on these claims, but, on the merits, decided against them and denied a writ of mandamus. Urging that such denial was in derogation of their rights under the Federal Constitution, the legislators, having been granted certiorari to review the Kansas judgment, Coleman v. Miller, 303 U.S. 632, ask this Court to reverse it.
It is not our function, and it is beyond our power, to write legal essays or to give legal opinions, however solemnly requested and however great the national emergency. See the correspondence between Secretary of State Jefferson and Chief Justice Jay, 3 Johnson, Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 486-89. Unlike the role allowed to judges in a few state courts and to the Supreme Court of Canada, our exclusive business is litigation. [Footnote 3/4] The requisites of litigation are not satisfied Page 307 U. S. 463 when questions of constitutionality, though conveyed through the outward forms of a conventional court proceeding, do not bear special relation to a particular litigant. The scope and consequences of our doctrine of judicial review over executive and legislative action Page 307 U. S. 464 should make us observe fastidiously the bounds of the litigious process within which we are confined. [Footnote 3/5] No matter how seriously infringement of the Constitution may be called into question, this is not the tribunal for its challenge except by those who have some specialized interest of their own to vindicate, apart from a political concern which belongs to all. Stearns v. Wood, 236 U. S. 75; Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126.
They say that it was beyond the power of the Kansas legislature, no matter who voted or how, to ratify the Child Labor Amendment, because, for Kansas, there was no Child Labor Amendment to ratify. Assuming that an amendment proposed by the Congress dies of inanition after what is to be deemed a "reasonable" time, they claim that, having been submitted in 1924, the proposed Child Labor Amendment was no longer alive in 1937. Or, if alive, it was no longer so for Kansas, because, by a prior resolution of rejection in 1925, Kansas had exhausted her power. In no respect, however, do these objections relate to any secular interest that pertains to these Kansas legislators apart from interests that belong to the entire commonalty of Kansas. The fact that these legislators are part of the ratifying mechanism, while the ordinary citizen of Kansas is not, is wholly irrelevant to this issue. On this aspect of the case, the problem would be exactly the same if all but one legislator had voted for ratification. Page 307 U. S. 465
Clearly a Kansan legislator would have no standing had be brought suit in a federal court. Can the Kansas Supreme Court transmute the general interest in these constitutional claims into the individualized legal interest indispensable here? No doubt the bounds of such legal interest have a penumbra which gives some freedom in judging fulfillment of our jurisdictional requirements. The doctrines affecting standing to sue in the federal courts will not be treated as mechanical yardsticks in assessing state court ascertainments of legal interest brought here for review. For the creation of vast domain of legal interests is in the keeping of the states, and, from time to time, state courts and legislators give legal protection to new individual interests. Thus, while the ordinary state taxpayer's suit is not recognized in the federal courts, it affords adequate standing for review of state decisions when so recognized by state courts. Coyle v. Smith, 221 U. S. 559; Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175. Page 307 U. S. 466
But it by no means follows that a state court ruling on the adequacy of legal interest is binding here. Thus, in Tyler v. Judges of the Court of Registration, 179 U. S. 405, the notion was rejected that merely because the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found an interest of sufficient legal significance for assailing a statute, this Court must consider such claim. Again, this Court has consistently held that the interest of a state official in vindicating the Constitution of the United States gives him no legal standing here to attack the constitutionality of a state statute in order to avoid compliance with it. Smith v. Indiana, 191 U. S. 138; Braxton County Court v. West Virginia, 208 U. S. 192; Marshall v. Dye, 231 U. S. 250; Stewart v. Kansas City, 239 U. S. 14. Nor can recognition by a state court of such an undifferentiated general interest confer jurisdiction on us. Columbus & Greenville Ry. Co. v. Miller, 283 U. S. 96, reversing Miller v. Columbus & Greenville Ry., 154 Miss. 317, 122 So. 366. Contrariwise, of course, an official has a legally recognized duty to enforce a statute which he is charged with enforcing. And so, an official who is obstructed in the performance of his duty under a state statute because his state court found a violation of the United States Constitution may, since the Act of December 23, 1914, 38 Stat. 790, ask this Court to remove the fetters against enforcement of his duty imposed by the state court because of an asserted misconception of the Constitution. Such a situation is represented by Blodgett v. Silberman, 277 U. S. 1, and satisfied the requirement of legal interest in Boynton v. Hutchinson, 291 U.S. 656, certiorari dismissed on another ground, 292 U.S. 601. [Footnote 3/6] Page 307 U. S. 467
This disposes of the standing of the three members of the lower house who seek to invoke the jurisdiction of this Court. They have no standing here. Equally without Page 307 U. S. 468 litigious standing is the member of the Kansas Senate who voted for "Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3." He cannot claim that his vote was denied any parliamentary efficacy to which it was entitled. There remains for consideration only the claim of the twenty nay-voting senators that the Lieutenant-Governor or Kansas, the presiding officer of its Senate, had, under the Kansas Constitution, no power to break the tie in the senatorial vote on the Amendment, thereby depriving their votes of the effect of creating such a tie. Whether this is the tribunal before which such a question can be raised by these senators must be determined even before considering whether the issue which they pose is justiciable. For the latter involves questions affecting the distribution of constitutional power which should be postponed to preliminary questions of legal standing to sue. Page 307 U. S. 469
The reasoning of Ashby v. White and the practice which has followed it leave intra-parliamentary controversies to parliaments and outside the scrutiny of law courts. The procedures for voting in legislative assemblies Page 307 U. S. 470 who are members, how and when they should vote, what is the requisite number of votes for different phases of legislative activity, what votes were cast, and how they were counted -- surely are matters that not merely concern political action, but are of the very essence of political action, if "political" has any connotation at all. Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 143 U. S. 670 et seq.; Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130, 258 U. S. 137. In no sense are they matters of "private damage." They pertain to legislators not as individuals, but as political representatives executing the legislative process. To open the law courts to such controversies is to have courts sit in judgment on the manifold disputes engendered by procedures for voting in legislative assemblies. If the doctrine of Ashby v. White vindicating the private rights of a voting citizen has not been doubted for over two hundred years, it is equally significant that, for over two hundred years, Ashby v. White has not been sought to be put to purposes like the present. In seeking redress here, these Kansas senators have wholly misconceived the functions of this Court. The writ of certiorari to the Kansas Supreme Court should therefore be dismissed.
and declares that the decision by Congress would not be subject to review by the courts. Page 307 U. S. 471
"We do not find anything in the article which suggests that an amendment once proposed is to be open to ratification for all time, or that ratification in some of the states may be separated from that in others by many years and yet be effective. We do find that which strongly suggests the contrary. First, proposal and ratification are not treated as unrelated acts, but as succeeding steps in a single endeavor, the natural inference being that they are not to be widely separated in time. Secondly, it is only when there is deemed to be a necessity therefor that amendments are to be proposed, the reasonable implication being that, when proposed, they are to be considered and disposed of presently. Thirdly, as ratification is but the expression of the approbation of the people, and is to be effective when had in three-fourths of the Page 307 U. S. 472 states, there is a fair implication that it must be sufficiently contemporaneous in that number of states to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same period, which, of course, ratification scattered through a long series of years would not do. These considerations and the general purport and spirit of the article lead to the conclusion expressed by Judge Jameson [in his Constitutional Conventions, 4th ed. § 585]"
"Of the power of Congress, keeping within reasonable limits, to fix a definite period for the ratification, we entertain no doubt. . . . Whether a definite period for ratification shall be fixed, so that all may know what it is and speculation on what is a reasonable time may be avoided, is, in our opinion, a matter of detail which Congress may determine as an incident of its power to designate the mode of ratification. It is not questioned that seven years, the period fixed in this instance, was reasonable, Page 307 U. S. 473 if power existed to fix a definite time; nor could it well be questioned considering the periods within which prior amendments were ratified."
Upon the reasoning of our opinion in that case, I would hold that more than a reasonable time had elapsed * and Page 307 U. S. 474 that the judgment of the Kansas supreme court should be reversed.
Unless Congress establishes a time window for passing an amendment, it remains pending indefinitely...	Read the full annotations for this case.