Opinion ID: 186912
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Marshall Field Squarely Applies

Text: 30 In Marshall Field, importers protesting duties levied against them sought to have the Tariff Act of 1890 declared unconstitutional. 143 U.S. at 662-69, 12 S.Ct. 495. According to the importers, even though the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate had endorsed the bill as having passed the bodies over which they presided, it [was] shown by the Congressional record of proceedings, reports of committees of each house, reports of committees of conference, and other papers printed by authority of Congress that part of the bill passed was missing in the version enrolled. Id. at 668-69, 12 S.Ct. 495. The importers argued that the Journal Clause, see U.S. CONST. art. I, § 5, cl. 3 (Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.), enshrines congressional journals—not the enrolled bill—as the best, if not conclusive, evidence upon the issue as to whether a bill was, in fact, passed by the two houses of Congress. Marshall Field, 143 U.S. at 670, 12 S.Ct. 495. 31 The Court rejected this interpretation of the bicameral passage requirement, holding that the object of the Journal Clause is to ensure transparency in legislative activities, not to prescribe the mode in which the fact of the original passage of a bill by the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be authenticated, or preclude Congress from adopting any mode to that end which its wisdom suggests. Id. at 670-71, 12 S.Ct. 495. Recognizing that Congress had long chosen signing of the enrolled bill by the presiding members of both houses as its method of authentication, the Court held that the judicial department [must] act upon that assurance, and . . . accept, as having passed Congress, all bills authenticated in the manner stated. Id. at 671-72, 12 S.Ct. 495. 32 The Marshall Field Court rested this conclusion upon two rationales. First, the Court reasoned by reference to public policy: 33 [W]e cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must result if this court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the Constitution, to declare that an enrolled bill, on which depend public and private interests of vast magnitude, and which has been authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two houses of Congress, and by the approval of the President, and been deposited in the public archives, as an act of Congress, was not in fact passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and therefore did not become a law. 34 Id. at 670, 12 S.Ct. 495. 35 Better, far better, that a provision should occasionally find its way into the statute through mistake, or even fraud, than that every act . . . should at any and all times be liable to be put in issue and impeached . . . . Such a state of uncertainty in the statute laws of the land would lead to mischiefs absolutely intolerable. 36 Id. at 675, 12 S.Ct. 495 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 676, 12 S.Ct. 495. Second, the Court based its holding on separation of powers concerns, citing the respect due to a coördinate branch of the government. Id. at 673, 12 S.Ct. 495; see also id. at 676-77, 12 S.Ct. 495 (explaining that the spectacle of examination of [congressional proceedings by the courts] would  subordinate [] the legislature and disregard[] that coequal position in our system of the three departments of government (internal quotation marks omitted)). 37 The Court crafted a clear rule: [I]t is not competent for [a party raising a bicameralism challenge] to show, from the journals of either house, from the reports of committees or from other documents printed by authority of Congress, that [an] enrolled bill differs from that actually passed by Congress. Id. at 680, 12 S.Ct. 495. The only evidence upon which a court may act when the issue is made as to whether a bill . . . asserted to have become a law, was or was not passed by Congress is an enrolled act attested to by declaration of the two houses, through their presiding officers. Id. at 670, 672, 12 S.Ct. 495. An enrolled bill, thus attested, is conclusive evidence that it was passed by Congress. Id. at 672-73, 12 S.Ct. 495. [T]he enrollment itself is the record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is . . . . Id. at 675, 12 S.Ct. 495 (internal quotation marks omitted). 38 In the case at bar, the record contains a copy of the DRA bearing the signatures of then Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert and President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens. Where such an attested enrolled bill exists, Marshall Field requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept [the bill] as having passed Congress. Id. at 672, 12 S.Ct. 495. Even if the Congressional record of proceedings, reports of committees of each house, reports of committees of conference, and other papers printed by authority of Congress, id. at 668-69, 12 S.Ct. 495, indicate that the House voted to enact a 36-month duration of Medicare payments for certain durable medical equipment while the Senate passed a 13-month figure, the courts are barred from considering this extrinsic evidence. The District Court therefore correctly dismissed Public Citizen's complaint pursuant to the enrolled bill rule. 39