Opinion ID: 1918907
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department.

Text: In Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 113 S.Ct. 732, 122 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993), a former chief judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Judge Walter L. Nixon, was impeached by the United States House of Representatives and was convicted by the Senate. Nixon argued that Senate Rule XI, under which he was tried and convicted, was unconstitutional because it provided for a Senate committee, rather than for the full Senate, to participate in the evidentiary hearings. The first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause, Art. I, § 3, cl. 7, United States Constitution, states that [t]he senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's ruling that the matter is nonjusticiable, holding that the language of the Impeachment Trial Clause demonstrates a commitment of the matter of impeachments to the Senate. The Supreme Court explained that in order to determine whether there is a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of an issue to a coordinate political department, a court must, in the first instance, interpret the text in question and determine to what extent the issue is textually committed. 506 U.S. at 228, 113 S.Ct. 732 (citing Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 519, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969)). The Supreme Court concluded that the first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause is a grant of authority to the Senate and that the word sole indicates that the authority is reposed in the Senate and nowhere else. 506 U.S. at 229, 113 S.Ct. 732. The Supreme Court was unpersuaded by Nixon's argument that sole means merely that the Senate, as opposed to the courts or a lay jury or a Senate committee, may try impeachments. The Supreme Court, quoting Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1971), noted that sole is defined as `functioning ... independently and without assistance or interference,' 506 U.S. at 231, 113 S.Ct. 732, and that allowing judicial review of impeachments would be inconsistent with the use of the word sole. The Court held, therefore, that the use of the word sole in the Impeachment Trial Clause means that the Senate's impeachment power is not subject to judicial review. [15] The Supreme Court's distinguishing of Nixon from Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969), is instructive. In Powell, the Supreme Court had examined the issue whether the constitutional commitment to the House of Representatives of the authority to judge the qualifications of its members precluded judicial review of such a determination. Article I, § 5, provides: Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members. However, Art. I, § 2, specifies three requirements for membership in the House: a member of the House must have attained the age of 25 years, must have been a citizen of the United States for 7 years, and must be an inhabitant of the state from which he is elected. In Powell, the Supreme Court held that those three specific requirements impart to the word qualifications in Art. I, § 5, a precise, limited nature. 395 U.S. at 522, 89 S.Ct. 1944. Thus, the House's argument that its power to judge the qualifications of its own members is a textually demonstrable commitment of unreviewable authority is defeated by the existence of this separate provision specifying the only qualifications which might be imposed for House membership. Nixon, 506 U.S. at 237, 113 S.Ct. 732 (discussing Powell ). In Nixon, on the other hand, there is no separate provision of the Constitution that would be defeated by allowing the Senate final authority to determine the meaning of the word try in the Impeachment Trial Clause. 506 U.S. at 237-38, 113 S.Ct. 732. The Supreme Court in Nixon recognized that, although courts do possess the power to review legislative or executive actions that transgress identifiable textual limits, the word try in the Impeachment Trial Clause does not provide an identifiable textual limit on the authority committed to the Senate to conduct impeachment proceedings. Id. Thus, the Supreme Court concluded, the question of how the Senate may try an impeachment is a nonjusticiable political question. In State of Alabama ex rel. James v. Reed, 364 So.2d 303 (Ala.1978), this Court considered whether the question of a legislator's ability to hold office is nonjusticiable because it is committed to the legislature by the text of the Alabama Constitution. The State brought a quo warranto action challenging the qualifications of Thomas Reed to hold office as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives. Reed had been previously convicted of attempted bribery. This Court recognized that if the authority to pass on the question of Reed's eligibility is vested exclusively in the House of Representatives, then the question presented is a political one barred from judicial resolution by the separation-of-powers doctrine. 364 So.2d at 305. Reed contended that §§ 51 and 53, Ala. Const. 1901, are a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue of a House member's eligibility to the legislature and, therefore, that the question is nonjusticiable. Section 51 provides: Each house shall choose its own officers and shall judge the election, returns, and qualifications of its members. Section 53 provides: Each house shall have power to determine the rules of its proceedings.... This Court determined in Reed that §§ 51 and 53 do not demonstrate a constitutional commitment of the issue to the legislature. However, the holding expressly rested on the presence of § 60, Ala. Const. 1901, which provides that [n]o person convicted of embezzlement of the public money, bribery, perjury, or other infamous crime, shall be eligible to the legislature, or capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this state. This Court held that § 60 is a specific constitutional limitation on legislative authority, [16] like the three requirements for membership in the United States House of Representatives the Supreme Court of the United States considered in Powell v. McCormack . Because § 60 expressly limits legislative authority, this Court concluded, judicial enforcement of its mandate does not derogate the principle of separation of powers. 364 So.2d at 306. This Court concluded that to construe §§ 51 and 53 as vesting in the legislature exclusive authority on the issue, thereby removing it from judicial cognizance, would deprive § 60 of its field of operation. 364 So.2d at 306-07. Section 63, Ala. Const. 1901, states that no bill shall become a law, unless ... a majority of each house be recorded [upon the journals] as voting in its favor. The question presented in the case before us today is whether the rules and procedure by which the Alabama House of Representatives determined that the bills that became Act No. 288 and Act No. 357 each received a majority vote of the House are subject to judicial review. Section 53, Ala. Const.1901, expressly provides that [e]ach house shall have power to determine the rules of its proceedings. The power of the legislature to determine the rules of its own proceedings is unlimited except as controlled by other provisions of our Constitution, and unless controlled by other constitutional provisions the courts cannot look to the wisdom or folly, the advantages or disadvantages of the rules which a legislative body adopts to govern its own proceedings. Opinion of the Justices No. 185, 278 Ala. 522, 524-25, 179 So.2d 155, 158 (1965). Unlike Reed, in which an express constitutional prohibition on a felon's serving in the legislature was applicable, and unlike Powell, in which express constitutionally identified qualifications for membership in the United States House of Representatives were applicable, there is in the case before us no provision of the Alabama Constitution that defines or limits what is meant by the term a majority of each house, and there is no other provision of the Constitution that would be defeated by allowing the legislature the final authority over its internal voting rules and procedures. Because the Alabama Constitution contains no limitation on the manner in which the legislature might interpret the phrase majority of each house and because the Constitution clearly grants to the legislature the power to determine the rules of its own proceedings, whether a majority of each house has voted in favor of a bill must be decided by the rules established by the legislature. We conclude that there is a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment to the legislature of the question of how to determine what constitutes a majority of each house... voting in [the bill's] favor. See Nixon, 506 U.S. at 230, 113 S.Ct. 732. Therefore, whether the legislature conducted its internal voting proceedings in compliance with § 63 is a nonjusticiable issue.