Court Opinion

ID: 9425330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:22.911044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.773892
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, and with whom Mr. Justice Stewart joins as to Part I, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the Court’s holding that the respondent Members of Congress and their committee aides and employees are immune under the Speech or Debate Clause for preparation of the Committee report for dis*339tribution within the halls of Congress. I dissent from the Court’s holding that Members of Congress might be held liable if they were in fact responsible for public dissemination of a committee report, and that therefore the Public Printer or the Superintendent of Documents might likewise be liable for such distribution. And quite apart from the immunity which I believe the Speech or Debate Clause confers upon congressionally authorized public distribution of committee reports, I believe that the principle of separation of powers absolutely prohibits any form of injunctive relief in the circumstances here presented.
I
In Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606 (1972), we decided that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution did not protect private republication of a committee report, but left open the question of whether publication and public distribution of such reports authorized by Congress would be included within the privilege. Id., at 626 n. 16. While there are intimations in today’s opinion that the privilege does not cover such authorized public distribution, the ultimate holding is apparently that the District Court must take evidence and determine for itself whether or not such publication in this case was within the “legitimate legislative needs of Congress,” ante, at 324.
While there is no reason for a rigid, mechanical application of the Speech or Debate Clause, there would seem to be equally little reason for a completely ad hoc, factual determination in each case of public distribution as to whether that distribution served the “legitimate legislative needs of Congress.” A supposed privilege against being held judicially accountable for an act is of virtually no use to the claimant of the privilege if it may only be sustained after elaborate judicial inquiry into the circumstances under which the act was performed. This *340disposition is particularly anomalous when viewed in light of our earlier views on the scope of the constitutional privilege to the effect that it is “not consonant with our scheme of government for a court to inquire into the motives of legislators.” Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 377 (1961). A factual hearing in the District Court could scarcely avoid inquiry into legislative motivation.
Previous decisions of this Court have upheld the immunity of Members whenever they are “acting in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity.” Id., at 376. In Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168 (1881), we held that this immunity extends to everything “generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.” Id., at 204. This relatively expansive interpretation of the scope of immunity has been consistently reaffirmed. United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169, 179 (1966); United States v. Brewster, 408 TJ. S. 501, 509 (1972).
The subject matter of the Committee report here in question was, as the Court notes, concededly within the legislative authority of Congress. Congress has jurisdiction over all matters within the District of Columbia, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, and the Committee was authorized by the full House to investigate the District's public school system. H. Res. 76, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 115 Cong. Rec. 2784 (1969). And we have held that with respect to the preliminary inquiries, such as the findings here represent, concerning potential legislation, Congress’ power “is as-penetrating and far-reaching as the potential power to enact and appropriate under the Constitution.” Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 111 (1959).
In Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, at 204, Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 502 (1969), and Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S., at 624, the Court has held that committee reports are absolutely privileged. In *341neither Kilbourn nor Powell was any distinction intimated between internal and public distribution of the reports. And while the question was reserved in Gravel, a comparison of the factual background surrounding Senator Gravel’s reading into the committee record the Pentagon Papers, and the limited publication apparently undertaken here, indicates that the difference in actual effect between the two is indeed minimal The only difference between Senator Gravel’s widely publicized reading, in the presence of numerous spectators and journalists, and the public distribution of this report, is that the former was confined within the legislative halls. But it can scarcely be doubted that information produced at a publicly attended committee hearing within the legislative halls may well as a practical matter receive every bit as much public circulation as information contained in a committee report which is itself publicly circulated.
To the extent that public participation in a relatively open legislative process is desirable, the Court’s holding makes the materials bearing on that process less available than they might be. And the limitation thus judicially imposed is squarely contrary to the expressed intent of Congress. The Committee report was ordered printed by the full House sitting as a Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union. 116 Cong. Rec. 40311. It was thereafter printed and distributed by the Government Printing Office solely in accordance with statutory provisions. 44 U. S. C. §§ 501, 701. These provisions state specifically that the Public Printer may print only the number of copies designated by the Congress, such number, in the absence of contrary indication, being the “usual number” established by statute as 1,682. These copies may be distributed only “among those entitled to receive them.” § 701 (a). The distributees are specifically designated in the statute it*342self. § 701 (c). Extra copies may be printed only by simple, concurrent, or joint resolution. § 703. Thus, every action taken by the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents, so far as this record indicates, was under the direction of Congress.
I agree with the Court that the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents have no “official immunity” under the authority of Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959). There is no immunity there when officials are simply carrying out the directives of officials in the other branches of Government, rather than performing any discretionary function of their own. But for this very reason, if the body directing the publication or its Members would themselves be immune from publishing and distributing, the Public Printer and the Superintendent should be likewise immune. I do not understand the Court to hold otherwise. Because I would hold the Members immune had they undertaken the public distribution, I would likewise hold the Superintendent and the Public Printer immune for having done so under the authority of the resolution and statute. The Court’s contrary conclusion, perhaps influenced by the allegations of serious harm to the petitioners contained in their complaint, unduly restricts the privilege. The sustaining of any claim of privilege invariably forecloses further inquiry into a factual situation which, in the absence of privilege, might well have warranted judicial relief. The reason why the law has nonetheless established categories of privilege has never been better set forth than in the opinion of Judge Learned Hand in Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581 (CA2 1949) :
“It does indeed go without saying that an official, who is in fact guilty of using his powers to vent his spleen upon others, or for any other personal motive not connected with the public good, should not es*343cape liability for the injuries he may so cause; and, if it were possible in practice to confine such complaints to the guilty, it would be monstrous to deny recovery. The justification for doing so is that it is impossible to know whether the claim is well founded until the case has been tried, and that to submit all officials, the innocent as well as the guilty, to the burden of a trial and to the inevitable danger of its outcome, would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties. Again and again the public interest calls for action which may turn out to be founded on a mistake, in the face of which an official may later find himself hard put to it to satisfy a jury of his good faith. There must indeed be means of punishing public officers who have been truant to their duties; but that is quite another matter from exposing such as have been honestly mistaken to suit by anyone who has suffered from their errors. As is so often the case, the answer must be found in a balance between the evils inevitable in either alternative. In this instance it has been thought in the end better to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation.”
II
Entirely apart from the immunity conferred by the Speech or Debate Clause on these respondents, I believe that the principle of separation of powers forbids the granting of injunctive relief by the District Court in a case such as this. We have jurisdiction to review the completed acts of the Legislative and Executive Branches. See, e. g., Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803); *344Youngstown Sheet & Tube Go. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579 (1952); Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra. But the prospect of the District Court’s enjoining a committee of Congress, which, in the legislative scheme of things, is for all practical purposes Congress itself, from undertaking to publicly distribute one of its reports in the manner that Congress has by statute prescribed that it be distributed, is one that I believe would have boggled the minds of the Framers of the Constitution.
In Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wall. 475 (1867), an action was brought seeking to enjoin the President from executing a duly enacted statute on the ground that such executive action would be unconstitutional. The Court there expressed the view that I believe should control the availability of the injunctive relief here:
“The Congress is the legislative department of the government; the President is the executive department. Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed, are, in proper cases, subject to its cognizance.” Id., at 500.
In Kilbourn v. Thompson, supra, the Court reviewed the arrest and confinement of a private citizen by the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives. In Watkins v. United States, 354 U. S. 178 (1957), the Court reviewed the scope of the investigatory powers of Congress when the executive had prosecuted a recalcitrant witness and sought a judicial forum for the purpose of imposing criminal sanctions on him. Neither of these cases comes close to having the mischievous possibilities of censorship being imposed by one branch of the Government upon the other as does this one.
In New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U. S. 713 (1971), this Court held that prior restraint comes before it bearing a heavy burden. Id., at 714. Whatever may *345be the difference in the constitutional posture of the two situations, on the issue of injunctive relief, which is nothing if not a form of prior restraint, a Congressman should stand in no worse position in the federal courts than does a private publisher. Cf. Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24, 34-35 (1948). Purely as a matter of regulating the exercise of federal equitable jurisdiction in the light of the principle of separation of powers, I would foreclose the availability of injunctive relief against these respondents.