Court Opinion

ID: 9462356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:39:18.969279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:33.543145
License: Public Domain

THOMSEN, Senior District Judge
(dissenting):
I concur in those portions of the court’s opinion which hold that plaintiffs have no standing as members of Congress or as citizens to maintain this ac*460tion; but I respectfully dissent from the ruling that they have no standing as taxpayers to seek an injunction to restrain an alleged violation of Article 1, § 9, Cl. 7 of the Constitution,* based upon their allegation that the executive is drawing money from the Treasury in violation of specific prohibitions in Public Law No. 93-50, § 307 and Public Law No. 93-52, § 108, quoted in footnote 1 of the court’s opinion. Whether plaintiffs will be able to prove such a violation is not now before us; some of the alleged acts would not amount to a violation, some have ceased, and if all shall have ceased before the case is concluded, it may well be dismissed as moot.
The two statutes cited by plaintiffs prohibited the use of appropriated funds for specified purposes on or after August 15, 1973. The legal situation before that date was discussed in a number of cases, including Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 484 F.2d 1307 (2 Cir. 1973), cited with approval in the court’s opinion herein, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Laird, 451 F.2d 26 (1 Cir. 1971). The First Circuit case discussed at length the respective powers of the executive and of Congress with respect to belligerent activities, and concluded:
“As to the power to conduct undeclared hostilities beyond emergency defense, then, we are inclined to believe that the Constitution, in giving some essential powers to Congress and others to the executive, committed the matter to both branches, whose joint concord precludes the judiciary from measuring a specific executive action against any specific clause in isolation. * * * ” 451 F.2d at 33.
The court added:
“The question remains to be asked: when the executive and Congress disagree not as to the advisability of fighting a war but as to the appropriate level of fighting, how shall the Constitution be served? When the executive takes a strong hand, Congress has no lack of corrective power. Congress has the power to tax, to appropriate, to impound, to override a veto. The executive has only the inherent power to propose and to implement, and the formal power to veto. The objective of the drafters of the Constitution was to give each branch ‘constitutional arms for its own defense’. The Federalist No. 23, at 476 (Mod.Lib.ed.) (Hamilton). But the advantage was given the Congress, Hamilton noting the ‘superior weight and influence of the legislative body in a free government, and the hazard to the Executive in a trial of strength with that body.’ Id. at 478.
“All we hold here is that in a situation of prolonged but undeclared hostilities, where the executive continues to act not only in the absence of any conflicting Congressional claim of authority but with steady Congressional support, the Constitution has not been breached. The war in Vietnam is a product of the jointly supportive actions of the two branches to whom the congeries of the war powers have been committed. Because the branches are not in opposition, there is no necessity of determining boundaries. Should either branch be opposed to the continuance of hostilities, however, and present the issue in clear terms, a court might well take a different view. This question we do not face. Nor does the prospect that such a question might be posed indicate a different answer in the present case.” 451 F.2d at 34.
The provisions of the two statutes set out in footnote 1 of the court’s opinion herein have created, on and after August 15, 1973, the situation foreseen by the First Circuit.
The decisions and the various opinions in United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974), and in Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee to Stop the War, 418 U.S. 208, 94 *461S.Ct. 2925, 41 L.Ed.2d 706 (1974), decided after the First Circuit case, must also be considered. Many of the points discussed in those cases must also be considered in this case, and the decisions in those cases are, of course, binding on this court. Those decisions, however, do not appear to me to require the dismissal of the complaint in the instant case. Various issues may be raised by the answer, in pretrial proceedings and at the trial which cannot now be answered and which may control or affect the ultimate decision. They should be faced as they arise.

That clause provides in pertinent part: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; * *