Opinion ID: 524254
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Availability of Immunity to District Councilmember

Text: 20 As a preliminary matter, we must determine whether a member of the Council of the District of Columbia enjoys absolute legislative immunity in any circumstances to suits brought under Section 1983. The District of Columbia, of course, occupies a unique position as the only federal municipality in the nation. 6 Councilmember Winter argues, without contradiction from Ms. Gross, that because Congress has authorized the Council to exercise the combined powers of a state and a municipal legislature its members should enjoy the same immunities as other state legislators in Section 1983 litigation. Brief for Appellant at 18 n. 10. Although we have not addressed the issue before, we agree and hold that District councilmembers may invoke the same immunities as their state counterparts. 21 The status of the District of Columbia under Section 1983 has been the subject of both Supreme Court precedent and congressional legislation. In District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), the Court held that the District was not a State or Territory within the meaning of Section 1983. Id. at 432, 93 S.Ct. at 610. Congress thereafter amended Section 1983 to include the District of Columbia within its ambit. Pub.L. No. 96-170, 93 Stat. 1284 (1979). 7 The clear purpose of the amendment was to give citizens of the District of Columbia rights equal to those of citizens in the states and territories of the United States. H.R.Rep. No. 96-548, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 1 (1979), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1979, p. 2609. 8 Moreover, although the subject of legislative immunity apparently never arose, the legislative history of the amendment evinces an intent to bring the District of Columbia within the mainstream of Section 1983 jurisprudence. 9 22 At the time the amendment was adopted, that jurisprudence included the Court's decisions in Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 783, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951), and Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 99 S.Ct. 1171, 59 L.Ed.2d 401 (1979), holding that Section 1983 did not abrogate the common law legislative immunity of state and regional legislators. The Court in Lake Country Estates, however, left open whether such immunity extends to individuals performing legislative functions at the purely local level. 440 U.S. at 404 n. 26, 99 S.Ct. at 1178 n. 26; see generally United States v. City of Yonkers, 856 F.2d 444, 455 (2d Cir.1988), cert. granted in part and denied in part, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1337, 1339, 103 L.Ed.2d 808 (1989). Although it is not clear exactly where the Council of the District of Columbia should fall on this state, regional, and local scale, we find its members at least comparable to those of the regional planning authority that were granted immunity in Lake Country Estates. 23 That Councilmember Winter is entitled to invoke the doctrine of absolute legislative immunity in a Section 1983 suit, however, only begins our analysis. As Ms. Gross points out, [t]his appeal involves no challenge to the general principle of legislative immunity, but only to its applicability on the peculiar facts of this case. Brief for Appellee at 19. As discussed below, the doctrine protects legislators only in the exercise of legislative functions, not administrative functions--and this case falls in the latter category. 24