Opinion ID: 186912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Public Citizen's Challenge to the DRA

Text: 11 On February 8, 2006, President Bush signed a budget bill known as the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. In ten titles, the DRA amends a variety of familiar statutes, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, the Communications Act of 1934, and the Social Security Act. The provisions of the DRA are sweeping: the Act, inter alia, effects extensive changes to Medicare and Medicaid laws, provides relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, creates a program through which households may obtain coupons to defray the cost of digital-to-analog converter boxes for their televisions, and, significantly, for purposes of this law suit, amends the U.S. Code to increase the filing fee for civil actions in federal district courts from $250 to $350. 12 Approximately six weeks after the President signed the DRA, Public Citizen filed a complaint against the Clerk of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Clerk), arguing that as an organization that routinely files civil suits, it anticipated having to pay the $100 fee increase on a regular basis. Public Citizen asked the District Court to declare the Act unconstitutional and compel the Clerk to maintain the $250 filing fee. 13 The facts in this case are straightforward and largely undisputed. Nonetheless, on review of a motion to dismiss, we must treat the complaint's factual allegations as true . . . and must grant [Public Citizen] the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged. Holy Land Found. for Relief & Dev. v. Ashcroft, 333 F.3d 156, 165 (D.C.Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). We will therefore recite the facts underlying the complaint as they have been presented by Public Citizen. 14 According to the complaint, in the Fall of 2005, the House and Senate passed different versions of a budget bill referred to as S. 1932. To iron out the differences, the legislation was sent to a conference committee. The committee produced a conference report which failed to pass the Senate. Shortly thereafter the Senate passed an amended version of S. 1932 wherein § 5101 specified a 13-month duration of Medicare payments for certain durable medical equipment. However, when the Senate clerk transmitted the engrossed S. 1932 to the House, he mistakenly changed § 5101 of the bill to reflect a 36-month duration of payments for durable medical equipment rather than the 13-month duration actually approved by the Senate. The House voted on this engrossed bill, including the erroneous duration figure. Because the legislation originated in the Senate, the House returned it to the Senate for enrollment. The Senate clerk, recognizing the transcription error in the engrossed bill, altered the text of the enrolled bill so that it included a 13-month rather than a 36-month duration. The version of the DRA signed by the presiding officers contains the 13-month figure. Thus, since the 13-month duration term in the enrolled bill passed the Senate but not the House, the President signed legislation that did not actually pass both houses of Congress in precisely the same form. 15 After filing its complaint, Public Citizen moved for summary judgment. The Clerk lodged a motion to dismiss the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The District Court denied Public Citizen's motion and granted dismissal, concluding that even if it accepted Public Citizen's allegations as true, the bicameralism challenge still must fail under the enrolled bill rule of Marshall Field. Public Citizen, 451 F.Supp.2d at 128. Public Citizen now appeals the dismissal of its complaint and denial of its motion for summary judgment.