Court Opinion

ID: 9473701
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:37:19.058542+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:41.555658
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Having found that “[n]othing we say or do, nothing the state court says or does, could affect the outcome of this election,” ante at 1081, the court concludes that it “has no right to determine the outcome of ... [the] dispute ... [and] also has a duty not to discuss the merits of that dispute,” ante at 1081. Yet the court inconsistently proceeds to decide the merits of the removal of the two State election contests to the federal court and, after ordering a remand, to speculate what the State courts may or may not do, and to evaluate the pursuit of further proceedings in those forums.
I dissent from this, approach by the majority including the rendering of such an advisory opinion. In my view, this court is without jurisdiction to remand the cases to the State courts because, aside from the question of mootness, the underlying election controversy is now a nonjustieiable political question.* Once the House has asserted its exclusive jurisdiction under U.S. Const, art. I, § 5 to seat a particular candidate as a member of the House, no court in the land — State or federal — has jurisdiction to hear any dispute contesting the outcome of the election. The only course that ought be taken is to dismiss the appeals.
Although the majority agrees that the House’s decision to seat McCloskey is a nonjustieiable political question, it defines the State’s recount as an entirely separate issue that the State courts are free to consider even after the House has reached its final judgment. It is true the States may conduct recounts pursuant to their constitutional power to regulate the time, place, and manner of congressional elections. U.S. Const, art. I, § 4; Roudebush v. *1088Hartke, 405 U.S. 15, 24-25, 92 S.Ct. 804, 810-811, 31 L.Ed.2d 1 (1972). Where a house of Congress has expressly refused to seat a candidate pending a State recount and where the recount does not undermine the ability of that house to conduct its own investigation of the election, federal courts cannot enjoin the recount. Roudebush, 405 U.S. at 18, 25-26, 92 S.Ct. 804, 810-811, 31 L.Ed.2d 1.
Here, however, the circumstances are such that continued recount proceedings are inconsistent with the House’s absolute, unicameral authority to “Judge ... the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members.” U.S. Const, art. I, § 5. Before the House determines with finality who won the election, a system of dual sovereignty over elections is permissible because the State’s tally is an important factor in the House’s consideration. See H.Rep. No. 58, 99th Cong., 1st sess. 3 (1985) (“The House has consistently extended considerable deference to state election procedures.”). Once the House does decide to seat a particular candidate, the election is functus officio. It is no longer realistic or important to distinguish between the State’s power to recount the votes and the House’s final authority to judge the victor. Continued State proceedings are an affront to the House’s absolute authority because they can only serve as an official declaration by the State that the duly-seated representative of the people of Indiana is a pretender to the throne.
It can be argued that in a polity as open and pluralistic as ours, we should not be too disturbed by the prospect of a State, in effect, “dissenting” from a decision of the House. Yet, such an eventuality will be inconsistent with three fundamental tenets of constitutional law.
First, in our federal system of dual sovereignty, the national government is supreme. U.S. Const, art. VI, cl. 2. The notion that the States could nullify or challenge federal authority was put to rest by events culminating in the Civil War.
Second, the principle of separation of powers requires the various branches of government to respect power that is unambiguously committed by the constitutional text to a coordinate branch of government. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, 710, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). The State courts have no more authority than the federal courts to render their own independent pronouncements on an issue unambiguously committed to the House by U.S. Const, art. I, § 5.
Third, ours is a representative democracy. The people of Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District cannot be properly represented unless the legitimacy and authority of one congressman to represent them are finally determined. Accordingly, once the House makes a final decision to seat a particular candidate, the entire election controversy becomes a political question for two of the reasons noted in Baker, 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. at 710: there is “an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made” and there is “the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.”
McIntyre’s remedy is to assert his first amendment rights, as a private citizen, to attack the choice of McCloskey. But he cannot, through the use of State proceedings, enlist the State as an ally in this regard, for such State action contravenes the principles of federal supremacy and separation of powers, as well as inhibits the right of the citizens in the district to be represented in Congress. I would therefore dismiss the consolidated appeals as involving a nonjusticiable political question.

 On the distinction between mootness and justici-ability, see Kates & Barker, Mootness in Judicial Proceedings: Toward a Coherent Theory, 62 Calif.L.Rev. 1385, 1387 (1974).