Court Opinion

ID: 9454349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:44:04.921868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:05.101125
License: Public Domain

FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge
(concurring) .
I concur fully in the thoughtful and learned opinion of Judge Robinson for the court. The Constitution places the control of these properties of the United States in the Congress:
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and to make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; * * *
U.S.Const, art. IV, § 3.
Thus, the executive branch of the Government has only such authority over the national cemeteries as is delegated to the Executive by the Congress. It was natural for the Congress to delegate to the Secretaries authority to formulate regulations for the maintenance and administration of the cemeteries. In doing this the Congress at the same time described the persons whose remains could be buried there. The remains of Robert G. Thompson come within the persons described. The Secretaries accordingly lack authority to exclude them. The grant to the Secretaries of regulatory authority essential to the maintenance and administration of the cemeteries would seem to demonstrate that this responsibility of the Secretaries is not one to create classes which exclude the remains of some of those whose remains have been designated in the same legislation as eligible for burial.
The problem of legislative ratification is fully covered by Judge Robinson. To support the position of the Secretaries on this branch of the case would extend the theory of ratification to cover prior legislative approval of unknown, and un-ratified, classifications from time to time made by the Secretaries within the particular classifications the Congress has itself made by duly enacted legislation.