Opinion ID: 110985
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Political Question

Text: It is also argued that these cases present a nonjusticiable political question because Chadha is merely challenging Congress' authority under the Naturalization Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, and the Necessary and Proper Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 18. It is argued that Congress' Art. I power To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, combined with the Necessary and Proper Clause, grants it unreviewable authority over the regulation of aliens. The plenary authority of Congress over aliens under Art. I, § 8, cl. 4, is not open to question, but what is challenged here is whether Congress has chosen a constitutionally permissible means of implementing that power. As we made clear in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976): Congress has plenary authority in all cases in which it has substantive legislative jurisdiction, McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), so long as the exercise of that authority does not offend some other constitutional restriction. Id., at 132. A brief review of those factors which may indicate the presence of a nonjusticiable political question satisfies us that our assertion of jurisdiction over these cases does no violence to the political question doctrine. As identified in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 217 (1962), a political question may arise when any one of the following circumstances is present: a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question. Congress apparently directs its assertion of nonjusticiability to the first of the Baker factors by asserting that Chadha's claim is an assault on the legislative authority to enact Section 244(c)(2). Brief for Petitioner in No. 80-2170, p. 48. But if this turns the question into a political question virtually every challenge to the constitutionality of a statute would be a political question. Chadha indeed argues that one House of Congress cannot constitutionally veto the Attorney General's decision to allow him to remain in this country. No policy underlying the political question doctrine suggests that Congress or the Executive, or both acting in concert and in compliance with Art. I, can decide the constitutionality of a statute; that is a decision for the courts. [13] Other Baker factors are likewise inapplicable to this case. As we discuss more fully below, Art. I provides the judicially discoverable and manageable standards of Baker for resolving the question presented by these cases. Those standards forestall reliance by this Court on nonjudicial policy determinations or any showing of disrespect for a coordinate branch. Similarly, if Chadha's arguments are accepted, § 244(c)(2) cannot stand, and, since the constitutionality of that statute is for this Court to resolve, there is no possibility of multifarious pronouncements on this question. It is correct that this controversy may, in a sense, be termed political. But the presence of constitutional issues with significant political overtones does not automatically invoke the political question doctrine. Resolution of litigation challenging the constitutional authority of one of the three branches cannot be evaded by courts because the issues have political implications in the sense urged by Congress. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), was also a political case, involving as it did claims under a judicial commission alleged to have been duly signed by the President but not delivered. But courts cannot reject as `no law suit' a bona fide controversy as to whether some action denominated `political' exceeds constitutional authority. Baker v. Carr, supra, at 217. In Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649 (1892), this Court addressed and resolved the question whether a bill signed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and by the President of the Senate, presented to and approved by the President of the United States, and delivered by the latter to the Secretary of State, as an act passed by Congress, does not become a law of the United States if it had not in fact been passed by Congress. . . . . . . We recognize, on one hand, the duty of this court, from the performance of which it may not shrink, to give full effect to the provisions of the Constitution relating to the enactment of laws that are to operate wherever the authority and jurisdiction of the United States extend. On the other hand, we cannot be unmindful of the consequences that must result if this court should feel obliged, in fidelity to the Constitution, to declare that an enrolled bill, on which depend public and private interests of vast magnitude, and which has been . . . deposited in the public archives, as an act of Congress, . . . did not become a law. Id., at 669-670 (emphasis in original).