Court Opinion

ID: 9763830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:56:56.332184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:49.942325
License: Public Domain

BLUMENFELD, District Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I dissent on the ground that this is a case for a district court of one judge.

Jurisdiction

The plaintiff brings this action for an injunction to force the Secretary of State to validate his passport for travel to Cuba. The Secretary bases his refusal on existing State Department regulations.
We are confronted with a threshold question of jurisdiction. The question is whether this is a proper case for convening a three-judge court.
The recent per curiam opinion of the Supreme Court in Idlewild Bon Voyage Liquor Corp. v. Epstein, 370 U.S. 713, 715, 82 S.Ct. 1294, 1296, 8 L.Ed.2d 794 (1962), sets forth the tests which a district court should apply to determine whether a three-judge court is required:
“When an application for a statutory three-judge court is addressed to a district court, the court’s inquiry is appropriately limited to determining whether the constitutional question raised is substantial, whether the complaint at least formally alleges a basis for equitable relief, and whether the case presented otherwise comes within the requirements of the three-judge statute.”
There is no doubt that the constitutional question is not plainly insubstantial, see Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, 82 S.Ct. 549, 7 L.Ed.2d 512 (1962), for in Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 130, 78 S.Ct. 1113, 1120, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 (1958), the Supreme Court said: “To repeat, we deal here with a constitutional right of the citizen, a right which we must assume Congress will be faithful to respect.” And, a basis for equitable relief is alleged.
But, the case does not “otherwise come[s] within the requirements of the three-judge statute,” which reads:
Section 2282 of Title 28:
“An interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforce*77ment, operation or execution of any Act of Congress for repugnance to the Constitution of the United States shall not be granted by any district court or judge thereof unless the application therefor is heard and determined by a district court of three judges under section 2284 of this title.”
Here, we are not directly and immediately confronted with the question whether either of the statutes, § 211a or § 1185, by their terms forbid granting to the plaintiff a passport validated for travel to Cuba. The plaintiff himself conceives that his position in this court is to “properly sue to protect his constitutional rights by alleging that the statute relied upon by the administrative agency does not support the action taken by it, and that if it does it is unconstitutional.” Brief for Plaintiff, p. 5 (emphasis added).
This analysis is fairly derived from his specific prayer for relief:
“(e) Decreeing that the defendant Secretary of State’s restrictions upon travel to Cuba, as embodied in his public announcement of January 16, 1961, Press Release No. 24, in Public Notice 179, 26 F.R. 492, and in Departmental Regulation 108.456, 26 F.R. 482-483, are invalid, without any authority in law, and are unsupported by the Passport Act of 1926, 44 Stat. 887, 22 U.S.C. 211a, or by Section 215 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 163, 190, 8 U.S.C. 1185, or by Proclamation 3004,18 F.R. 489.” (Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint, p. 7)
The Supreme Court in Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. at 129-130, 78 S.Ct. at 1119-1120, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 treated § 1185(b) pari passu with § 211a, although the defendant expressly disclaims reliance upon it here as a source of authority for the regulation excluding travel to Cuba.
The focal point of the plaintiff’s attack is clearly upon the regulation itself. “But an attack on lawless exercise of authority in a particular case is not an attack upon the constitutionality of a statute conferring the authority even though a misreading of the statute is invoked as justification. At least, not within the Congressional scheme of § 266. * * * In other words, it [the plaintiff] seeks a restraint not of a statute but of an executive action.” 1 Phillips v. United States, 312 U.S. 246, 252, 61 S.Ct. 480, 484, 85 L.Ed. 800 (1941).
There is no logical escape from the proposition that whenever a regulation is held invalid it must mean either that the statute did not authorize the regulation or that the statute in so authorizing it is unconstitutional. In that event, the constitutional question is always reserved for secondary determination. The court’s general doctrine of avoiding constitutional questions whenever possible, see United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 45, 73 S.Ct. 543, 97 L.Ed. 770 (1953), is not without significance in determining whether the special three-judge court procedure should be invoked. The decision in Phillips v. United States that an attack upon a state statute was too remote to be cognizant for the procedural purposes of § 2281 tested by applying the principles set forth by Mr. Justice Cardozo in Gully v. First Nat. Bank, 299 U.S. 109, 116-118, 57 S.Ct. 96, 81 L.Ed. 70 (1936), to differentiate between stages of adjudication at which issues are reached would seem to compel a like determination here. See Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U.S. 153, 158, 82 S.Ct. 807, 7 L.Ed.2d 641 (1962).
We are not being asked to test the statute against the Constitution; we are being asked to test the departmental regulations. But a regulation is not an “Act of Congress.” As William Jameson & Co. v. Morgenthau, 307 U.S. 171, 173, 59 S.Ct. 804, 805, 83 L.Ed. 1189 (1939), *78points out, § 2282 does not refer to “an order made by an administrative board or commission” as does § 2281 relating to action by states, but confines its requirement for a three-judge court “to cases of attack upon an ‘Act of Congress’ upon the ground that ‘such Act or any part thereof is repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.’ ”
The fact that we deal with a constitutional right of a citizen does not mean that the validity of every claimed interference with it must be litigated before a three-judge court. A contrary conclusion is not compelled by a sentence in Mr. Justice Whittaker’s opinion in Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U.S. 73, 76-77, 80 S.Ct. 568, 4 L.Ed.2d 568 (1960), that a three-judge court is required whenever a substantial constitutional question is alleged.2 The statutes identified by the plaintiff, § 211a and § 1185, present no more of an immediate clash between the Act and the Constitution here than they did in Kent v. Dulles, where the court in openly failing to reach the question of the constitutionality of the same statutes which the plaintiff claims are involved here, said:
“We would be faced with important constitutional questions were we to hold that Congress by § 1185 and § 211a had given the Secretary authority to withhold passports to citizens because of their beliefs or associations. Congress has made no such provision in explicit terms; and absent one, the Secretary may not employ that standard to restrict the citizens’ right of free movement.” (357 U.S. at 130, 78 S.Ct. at 1120, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204.)
If the Supreme Court did not reach the question whether the same acts of Congress were repugnant to the Constitution in Kent v. Dulles, our exercise of jurisdiction as a three-judge court would be to permit the plaintiff in this case to wag the dog of a direct route to review by the Supreme Court simply by grasping the tail of a bare allegation of unconstitutionality of a statute and a prayer for an injunction
Examination of Flynn v. Rusk, 219 F.Supp. 709 (D.D.C.1963), appeal pending, in which a three-judge district court was convened, cited by the plaintiff, Brief for Plaintiff, p. 10, discloses a challenge to the constitutionality of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993, 50 U.S.C.'§ 785 (1958), which on its face and in specific terms forbids any member of a communist organization to make application for or use or attempt to use a passport. In Bauer v. Acheson, 106 F.Supp. 445 (D.D.C.1952), a case essentially the same as ours, upon which the plaintiff also relies, the misgivings of Circuit Judge Fahy over the lack of jurisdiction of a three-judge court led him to dissent, stating:
“In my view therefore the case is one for the usual district court composed of a single judge, with right in the parties to appeal from his decision to the Court of Appeals, followed by right of petition to the Supreme Court for review on writ of certiorari. This litigation should not be deemed within the special class of cases committed by Congress to a specially constituted three-judge court, properly convened only when a substantial question is raised as to the constitutionality of an Act of Congress the enforcement, operation or execution of which is sought to be enjoined, with right of direct appeal to the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2282, supra. Plaintiff in the end *79seeks at most to enjoin action of the Secretary which might be invalid because not in conformity with the proper construction of the statute under which he acts. She raises, and there is involved, no substantial question as to the constitutionality of the statute.” (106 F.Supp. at 454) (emphasis added)
That Kent v. Dulles was considered and decided on the merits by the Supreme Court without suggestion that a three-judge court should have been convened cannot be regarded as an omission by it to notice the route by which the case came before it, for as stated in Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, in Mr. Chief Justice Warren’s dissenting opinion:
“The question is whether a three-judge court was properly convened for the trial of this case. Although the issue was not considered by the courts below, and has not been raised by the parties here, it is our duty to take independent notice of such matters and to vacate and remand any decree entered by an improperly constituted court.” (369 U.S. at 175, 82 S.Ct. at 820, 7 L.Ed.2d 641) 3
However the situation might be, if regarded solely on the authority of Bauer v. Acheson, we now know that the Supreme Court did not deem an action to enjoin the Secretary of State from refusing to grant a passport on the basic of regulations promulgated under § 211a to require the invocation of a three-judge court. Furthermore, in none of three separately considered appeals from summary judgments for the Secretary of State in cases not distinguishable from this one, rendered by a single judge district court after Kent v. Dulles was decided, did the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit4 make any suggestion that a three-judge court should have been convened. Worthy v. Herter, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 153, 270 F.2d 905 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied 361 U.S. 918, 80 S.Ct. 255, 4 L.Ed.2d 186 (1959); Frank v. Herter, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 54,267 F.2d 245 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied 361 U.S. 918, 80 S.Ct. 256, 4 L.Ed.2d 187 (1959); Porter v. Herter, 107 U.S.App. D.C. 400, 278 F.2d 280 (D.C.Cir.1960), cert, denied 361 U.S. 918, 80 S.Ct. 260, 4 L.Ed.2d 185 (1959).
In my opinion, a three-judge court was improvidently invoked.

Merits

I would deny plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and grant the Secretary of State’s motion for summary judgment. For reasons which are set forth at the close of this opinion, I would dismiss the action against the Attorney General.
In the event it should hereafter be decided that this case should be determined by the action of a district judge, it is appropriate that I briefly express my views on the merits.
The statute, § 211a, has placed the authority to issue passports in the Secretary of State “under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States.” One of those rules provides: “The Secretary of State is authorized in his discretion * * * to restrict it [a passport] against use in certain countries * * * ” 22 C.F.R. § 51.75 (1949). Under a claim of authority thus derived from § 211a, the Secretary imposed a restriction upon travel to Cuba on January 16, 1961, Public Notice 179. Plaintiff’s contention that the purpose of § 211a was merely to centralize a minis*80terial duty to issue passports solely in the Secretary of State ignores the long standing view “that the issuance of passports is ‘a discretionary act’ on the part of the Secretary of State.” Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. at 124-125, 78 S.Ct. at 1117-1118, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204. While the Supreme Court held that the Secretary of State does not have “unbridled discretion to grant or withhold”, Id. at 129, 78 S.Ct. at 1120, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204, a passport, § 211a was not given such a restricted construction as that for which the plaintiff contends. When the Supreme Court in Kent v. Dulles rejected the Secretary’s argument that long continued executive construction prior to the 1926 enactment of § 211a warranted the inference that he had discretion to deny a passport on the ground of personal beliefs and associations of a citizen, it pointed out that the scattered rulings affecting communists were insufficient and that the administrative practices which had “jelled” in two categories relating to allegiance and criminal activity were not relevant. But in rejecting the probative value of some and the relevancy of other prior administrative practices to establish that Congress had adopted an interpretation of discretion that embraced the right to deny a passport on the ground of beliefs of a citizen, the Supreme Court did not decide that the Secretary’s discretion to deny passports was limited to only those categories which had jelled. The Court went no further than to “hesitate to impute to Congress, when in 1952 it made a passport necessary for foreign travel and left its issuance to the discretion of the Secretary of State, a purpose to give him unbridled discretion to grant or withhold a passport from a citizen for any substantive reason he may choose.” Id. at 128, 78 S.Ct. at 1119, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 (emphasis added). It was reiterating what it had already said about discretion: “But the key to that problem, as we shall see, is in the manner in which the Secretary’s discretion was exercised, not in the bare fact that he had discretion.” Id. at 125, 78 S.Ct. at 1118, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204. The point of Kent v. Dulles is that the exercise of discretion by the Secretary is subject to judicial scrutiny. See also Schachtman v. Dulles, 96 U.S.App.D.C. 287, 225 F.2d 938, 940 (D.C.Cir. 1955). Although the criteria for measuring the Secretary’s discretion have not been determined other than that it may not be “unbridled”, the fact that Congress gave it to the Executive indicates that it is to be exercised in relation to his powers to conduct foreign affairs. See Schachtman v. Dulles, 225 F.2d at 941-942. It is plain to see that Congress was thinking primarily of the recognized power of the President to conduct foreign affairs when through § 211a it placed the exclusive authority to issue passports in the Secretary of State, the arm of the President in conducting foreign affairs, under “such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States, * '* (Emphasis added). Travel to other nations is at least one facet of foreign affairs.
Plaintiff’s claim that § 211a is an unconstitutional delegation of power has no merit. The role of delegation is governed not only by the conditions surrounding the particular problem in this case, but by general premises underlying the conduct of foreign affairs, the critical phases of which have always been entrusted to the President and his Secretary of State. The scope and pace of foreign affairs in the condition of the world today would make it impossible for Congress to act without delegation. Where, as here, Congress seeks to implement presidential power, standards other than a reasonable connection to the conduct o^. foreign affairs are not necessary to constitutionality of the delegating act. Chicago & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948); see United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936). There is no need to consider whether it would fall within the scope of the President’s inherent powers. But see Worthy v. Herter, supra.
*81Although passports are sometimes the subject matter of treaties with other nations, the treaty power may include the power to exclude aliens but not the power to impose travel restrictions upon our own citizens. Treaty powers cannot be used to regulate matters which are purely of domestic concern. See Power Authority of New York v. F. P. C., 101 U.S.App.D.C. 132, 247 F.2d 538 (D.C. Cir.), remanded with direction to dismiss as moot, 355 U.S. 64, 78 S.Ct. 141, 2 L.Ed.2d 107 (1957).
The question then is whether the Secretary of State through the exercise of the discretion vested in him by the President pursuant to the power delegated by Congress in § 211a may restrict travel to a country with which the United States has broken off diplomatic relations.
The conduct of our relations with other nations is the primary responsibility of the President. United States v. CurtissWright Export Corp., supra. In particular, the President has the exclusive power to determine whether to recognize a foreign government and whether to initiate and maintain diplomatic relations. United States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 62 S.Ct. 552, 86 L.Ed. 796 (1942). This is not a case like Kent v. Dulles, where the passports were denied to certain citizens because of their beliefs and associations. Rather it designates certain parts of the world forbidden to all American travelers. This can hardly be regarded as arbitrary or capricious by this plaintiff. Cf. Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 350, 59 S.Ct. 884, 83 L.Ed. 1320 (1939). It relates not to internal security, but to foreign affairs.
The refusal to validate plaintiff’s passport for travel to Cuba relates to an exercise of the power to conduct foreign affairs which the Chief Executive already has and is well within the discretion given to the Secretary by the President. The amply sufficient reasons published by the Secretary for the promulgation of the regulation which curtails the plaintiff’s right to travel to Cuba were starkly emphasized when this government confronted the Soviet Union with a demand to remove the missiles it had previously brought to Cuba only a few weeks before Zemel began this suit.
I am not inhibited in reaching this result by constitutional considerations, for I believe that the restriction on the right to travel that is involved here is a valid' one. “ [T] he gravest imminent danger to' the public safety” is required in order to' justify the exclusion of persons from their homes, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 218, 65 S.Ct. 193, 195, 89 L.Ed. 194 (1944), and perhaps a similar showing must be made in order to justify the confinement of a citizen within the boundaries of this country. Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. at 128, 78 S.Ct. at 1119, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204. But the right to travel is properly subject to a reasonable prohibition on travel to a particular foreign country which our government believes to be so unfriendly to this nation as to require the severance of diplomatic relations with it. I do not regard ihe plaintiff’s right to see for himself what was happening in Cuba to be of so exalted a nature that it cannot be subj^Aed to restraint during a period when the State Department predicts that such travel might provoke international incidents which would necessitate negotiations, see 22 U.S.C. § 1732 (1958), with a government whose existence the United States is committed to ignore.
It remains to consider plaintiff’s claim that § 1185 does not authorize prosecution for violation of an area restriction contained in a passport. Apart from the fact that the Secretary expressly disclaims reliance upon it, that statute is concerned solely with the imposition of sanctions for passport violations, and does not undertake to create passport disqualification limitations. Briehl v. Dulles, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 239, 248 F.2d 561, 581 (D.C.Cir. 1957) (dissenting opinion of Bazelon, J.), rev’d sub nom. Kent v. Dulles, 359 U.S. 116, 78 S.Ct. 1113, 2 L.Ed.2d 1204 (1958). Since the area restriction in question is a reasonable regulation of the plaintiff’s right to travel, the plaintiff’s only interest in having the statute construed is to *82determine whether he may violate a valid restriction without risking the sanctions which § 1185 imposes for entry or departure from the United States contrary to its provisions. This is not a sufficient interest to require a construction of § 1185 before it is raised in a criminal proceeding. Pauling v. Eastland, 109 U.S. App.D.C. 342, 288 F.2d 126 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied, 364 U.S. 900, 81 S.Ct. 233, 5 L.Ed.2d 194 (1960) ; See International Longshoremen’s Ass’n v. Seatrain Lines, Inc., 212 F.Supp. 653 (S.D.N.Y.1963), rev’d on other grounds, 326 F.2d 916 (2 Cir. 1964).

. Section 266 is the predecessor of § 2281 and, although it deals with constitutionality of state statutes, it is fully applicable as in the respect here pertinent it in no way differs from § 2282.

. That statement was made in a special context to refute a claim that a proper reading of § 2281 limits the requirement of a three-judge court to cases where the constitutional claim is the sole claim before the court. It would be in point here only if the defendant sought to defeat three-judge court jurisdiction on the ground that the plaintiff had destroyed pristine applicability of § 2282 by alternately raising the question whether the President had a right, apart from an Act of Congress, to impose area restrictions reasonably related to the control of foreign relations inherent in the President’s plenary power over foreign affairs.

. This portion of the dissenting opinion did not divide the justices, see 369 U.S. at 155, 82 S.Ct. at 809-810, 7 L.Ed.2d 641, who rather focused on the question whether an immediate issue of constitutionality was presented. 369 U.S. at 157, 82 S.Ct. at 810-811, 7 L.Ed.2d 641.

. Six of the eight circuit judges who had sat en bane on Kent v. Dulles, sub nom. Briéhl v. Dulles, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 239, 248 F.2d 561 (D.C.Cir.1957), were equally distributed on three separate panels who upon review affirmed single judge district court determinations that state department regulations imposing area restrictions upon passports were valid.