Opinion ID: 112150
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Councilmembers

Text: 14 The councilmembers' primary argument is that a federal court lacks authority to order an individual local legislator, as opposed to the body in which he serves, to enact specific legislation. In the councilmembers' view, a federal court, by entering such an order, runs roughshod over what they see as the local legislator's right to be absolutely free from such restraints. While this issue arguably is of substantial interest, this case is not a proper vehicle for addressing it. In the first place, the broad question raised by the councilmembers is not presented by these facts. As the Court of Appeals stressed below, this is not a case where a federal court enjoined local legislators to vote in favor of a particular bill in order to remedy a constitutional violation. Far from that, this case presents the much more narrow question whether a federal court may order local officials to abide by an explicit obligation—here, a promise to enact legislation—contained in a consent decree that the officials voted to adopt and that the District Court agreed to accept. In short, this case is about a District Court's ability to enforce its consent decrees. In no way did the Court of Appeals even hint that federal courts possess the broad powers over local legislators that the councilmembers claim that the Court of Appeals arrogated to itself and the District Court. 15 In any event, it is not at all clear that federal courts lack authority in all circumstances to enter orders affecting a local legislator's performance of his legislative duties. In Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977), the Court held that a District Court could order local school authorities to implement certain programs designed to ameliorate the effects of prior segregation policies. As a practical matter, the import of the Court's decision was that the individual members of the local school authority were required to vote a certain way for specific remedial programs. This necessary effect of a remedial order is highlighted by the Court's earlier decision in Griffin v. Prince Edward County School Board, 377 U.S. 218, 84 S.Ct. 1226, 12 L.Ed.2d 256 (1964). There, the Court noted that a District Court possessed authority to order county supervisors to exercise the power that is theirs to levy taxes in order to reopen public schools that had been closed in an attempt to avoid a prior desegregation order. Id., at 233. As in this case, the individual local officials in Griffin openly flouted clear commands of a District Court. 16 Although cases like Milliken and Griffin may stand for the proposition that the district courts may enjoin local legislators to take certain affirmative steps in order to remedy constitutional violations, the Court has never squarely addressed the question whether these local legislators are entitled to some form of legislative immunity. In Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U.S. 391, 404, n. 26, 99 S.Ct. 1171, 1178, n. 26, 59 L.Ed.2d 401 (1979), the Court specifically left open the question whether local legislators are entitled to any immunity. (Earlier, in Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 376, 71 S.Ct. 783, 788, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951), state legislators were afforded absolute immunity for activities within the sphere of legislative activity; Lake Country extended such immunity to regional legislators, 440 U.S., at 405, 99 S.Ct., at 1179.) Since Lake Country issued, seven Courts of Appeals have held that local legislators are entitled to absolute legislative immunity. None of these cases, however, involved situations where the District Court sought to compel certain behavior to redress constitutional violations, let alone situations where the District Court merely sought to enforce a consent decree. Instead, the cases typically involved private-party damages actions against individual members of local governing boards. It would seem sensible to allow the lower courts to be the first to resolve the question whether legislative immunity protects local officials against the imposition of contempt sanctions for noncompliance with a consent decree imposing legislative obligations. 17 Even assuming that this question warrants the Court's immediate attention, the instant case contains a factual peculiarity that makes it unsuitable for review. The city stresses its extraordinary system of governance, in which the council exercises both legislative and executive powers. This necessarily complicates any legislative immunity analysis, particularly if one believes that the council exercised its executive prerogatives by not complying with the consent decree, and by not abiding by the July 26, 1988, order. Before the Court takes up the issue of local legislative immunity, it should wait for a case in which the legislative body is exercising only legislative powers. 18 Finally, the First Amendment and procedural due process claims strike me as totally meritless for the reasons articulated in the Court of Appeals' opinion. In any event, they involve the application of settled law to a particular set of facts.