Opinion ID: 7011509
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Newdow asks the district court to order the President of the United States (“the President”) to “alter, modify or repeal” the Pledge by removing the words “under God”; and to order the United States Congress (“Congress”) “immediately to act to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge.” The President, however, is not an appropriate defendant in an action challenging the constitutionality of a federal statute. See Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 802-03, 112 S.Ct. 2767, 120 L.Ed.2d 636 (1992) (plurality) (observing that a court of the United States “‘has no jurisdiction of a bill to enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties’”) (quoting Mississippi v. Johnson, 71 U.S. 475, 501, 18 L.Ed. 437 (1866)). Similarly, in light of the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 6, cl. 1, the federal courts lack jurisdiction to issue orders directing Congress to enact or amend legislation. See Eastland. v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U.S. 491, 503, 95 S.Ct. 1813, 44 L.Ed.2d 324 (1975). Because the words that amended the Pledge were enacted into law by statute, the district court may not direct Congress to delete those words any more than it may order the President to take such action. All this, of course, is aside from the fact that the President has no authority to amend a statute or declare a law unconstitutional, those functions being reserved to Congress and the federal judiciary respectively. Newdow nevertheless argues that because the 1954 Act violates the Establishment Clause, Congress should not be protected by the Speech and Debate Clause. This argument misses the jurisdictional, or separation of powers, point. As the Court held in Eastland, in determining whether or not the acts of members of Congress are protected by the Speech and Debate Clause, the court looks solely to whether or not the acts fall within the legitimate legislative sphere; if they do, Congress is protected by the absolute prohibition of the Clause against being “questioned in any other Place.” Id. at 501. “If the mere allegation that a valid legislative act-was undertaken for an unworthy purpose would lift the protection of the Clause, then the Clause simply would not provide the protection historically un-dergirding it.” Id. at 508-09, 95 S.Ct. 1813. Although the district court lacks jurisdiction over the President and the Congress, the question of the constitutionality of the 1954 Act remains before us. While the court correctly dismissed the claim against those parties, it survives against others.