Opinion ID: 675081
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Act of March 4, 1993

Text: 23 Mr. Boehner argues that if, as we hold, the COLA provision is constitutional, then the Act of March 4, 1993, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Amendments of 1993, Pub.L. No. 103-6, Sec. 7(a) (codified at 2 U.S.C. Sec. 31 note), cancelling the 1994 COLA violates the Madison amendment because it varies his compensation without an intervening election of Representatives. In other words, prior to March 4 the law was that Members would receive a COLA the following January 1. The new law varied their compensation as of January 1, 1994 without an election of Representatives having intervened. 24 For their part, the defendants object that Mr. Boehner should not be allowed to raise this issue for the first time on appeal. The President and the Secretary of the Senate argue further that Mr. Boehner could not prevail on the merits in any case because legislation foregoing a COLA is not a law varying compensation of the Members of Congress, but rather a law extending the period during which their compensation remains unchanged. (The defendants do not argue that a law decreasing congressional compensation is outside the intended reach of the Madison amendment, see Madison's statement quoted above, and we express no opinion upon that possibility.) 25 Although we have the authority to rule upon a question of law not considered by the district court, see Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 557, 61 S.Ct. 719, 85 L.Ed. 1037 (1941), this court has consistently refused to hear any claim upon which the district court has not had an opportunity to rule. See District of Columbia v. Air Florida, Inc., 750 F.2d 1077, 1084-85 (D.C.Cir.1984). In this case, Mr. Boehner presents no issue warranting a departure from our normal practice. 26 When the Act of March 4, 1993 became law Mr. Boehner had already noted his appeal in this case. There was no obstacle, however, to his filing another case in district court challenging the new law (and if appropriate, seeking expedition of that case in the district court or moving to have the present case held in abeyance in the court of appeals until the later-filed case was appealed). Perhaps he believed that we would consider his after-arising claim merely because it involves a change in the law relating to the subject of his pending appeal. See United States v. Reyes-Alvarado, 963 F.2d 1184, 1189 (9th Cir.1992). In this case, however, the new claim is premised upon a debatable factual assertion more properly considered in the first instance by the trier of fact. 27 In particular, Mr. Boehner's claim that the 1993 law cancelling the 1994 COLA is unconstitutional implicitly rests upon a theory of standing diametrically opposed to the theory underlying his challenge to the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. His challenge to that Act depends upon his representation to the court that a pay increase is, in his particular circumstance, an injury. Can a pay decrease also be an injury to him, then? Perhaps, but we will not simultaneously entertain seemingly contradictory factual claims of injury without allowing the appellees an opportunity to test the afterthought that creates the contradiction--and that can be done only in district court.