Opinion ID: 306425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Congressional Motives

Text: There can be little doubt that a valid exercise of congressional power will not be invalidated because the Congress had invalid motives when it passed the legislation in question. A long line of cases has affirmed and reaffirmed this principle in a variety of contexts. The reason that courts will nto go behind the face of legislation to hold it constitutionally void on such grounds rests on sound practical considerations regarding the nice balance between the judicial and legislative branches of Government. As the Supreme Court stated in United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 383-384, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1682, 20 L. Ed.2d 672 (1968): Inquiries into congressional motives or purposes are a hazardous matter. When the issue is simply the interpretation of legislation, the Court will look to statements by legislators for guidance as to the purpose of the legislature, because the benefit of sound decision-making in this circumstance is thought sufficient to risk the possibility of misreading Congress' purpose. It is entirely a different matter when we are asked to void a statute that is, under well-settled criteria, constitutional on its face on the basis of what fewer than a handful of Congressmen said about it. What motivates one legislator to make a speech about a statute is not necessarily what motivates scores of others to enact it, and the stakes are sufficiently high for us to eschew guesswork. Appellants concede the force of the principles enunciated above and seek to remove this case from their grasp by an examination of the legislative origin, context and purpose of Section 401(2). They allege that the provision was inserted in the District's revenue bill in 1968 within five days after the Bannockburn Plan was approved by the Montgomery County and District of Columbia School Boards and publically announced. They further allege that Section 401(2) appears in the context of Section 401(1), an anti-bussing provision that D.C.Revenue Act. 13 Finally, appellants allege that the report which accompanied Section 401(2) to the floor of the House makes it plain that the Section is aimed at eliminating the Bannockburn Plan. 14 The above circumstances, claim appellants, are sufficient to show that the purpose of Section 401(2) was to impede racial integration in schools. They further claim that no probing of the motives of the Congress is necessary to reach the conclusion they would have us draw from their allegations and that this court may thus look at the relatively objective criteria they have presented to determine whether the purpose of Congress in enacting Section 401(2) was legitimate. Distinctions between legislative purposes and motives have been recognized in a variety of contexts. 15 The distinction, however, is between what the legislature has actually done and why it has done so, for, [i]n a legal sense, the object or purpose of legislation is to be determined by its natural and reasonable effect, whatever may have been the motives upon which legislatures acted. 16 Thus, if what the legislature has done is constitutional, the reasons why it has done so are irrelevant. 17 Acceptance of appellants' arguments concerning the purpose of Section 401(2) would require us to resort to circumstantial evidence which tended to show that the Section was not simply a prohibition of extra-territorial expenditures of funds but was a prohibition of integration of the District's black school children with those of the white suburbs. In other words, we are asked to use such evidence as the basis for a conclusion (1) that Congress did not really care about the expenditure of funds for extra-territorial education but was concerned about integration and (2) that the statute is therefore unconstitutional. Appellants' suggested analysis does not change the fact that they are asking us to examine congressional motivations, for we are still asked to hold a statute unconstitutional because of the reason it was enacted. Whether these reasons are denominated motives or purposes, they cannot provide us with a basis for invalidating an act of Congress valid on its face and in effect. A claim that they can is insubstantial. 18