Court Opinion

ID: 9453677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:20:20.227418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:45.236974
License: Public Domain

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring separately):
My colleagues and I reach a common result, that is to say, (1) a three-judge court was not required for the reasons stated by Judge Burger, and (2) we do not think it either necessary or appropriate to direct the District Court to reinstate the complaint and to determine af*606ter trial whether the particular relief sought should be given. Because this second determination involves considerations peculiarly committed to judicial discretion, it is not surprising that, although our identification and weighing of relevant factors presents some overlap, each of us has preferred to characterize in his own words the route he has travelled.1
This record demonstrates to me that, from the beginning, Representative Powell’s view of the Constitution has explicitly and continuously been that, so long as he possesses the requisite qualifications of age, citizenship, and inhabitancy, his right to serve in the House is solely a matter between him and his constituents, not his colleagues. If the voters of his district do not like his conduct in office, they can turn him out at the next election ; or, if that conduct be thought vio-lative of the criminal laws, the proper authorities can seek indictments. But, so his reasoning proceeds, for his colleagues to make that conduct the occasion for severance of their association together in the House would be, without observance of the amending process, to add further qualification requirements to the three now stated in the Constitution.
Thus it was that, although the Select Committee expressly informed him that the scope of its inquiry included both (1) his qualifications in terms of age, citizenship, and inhabitancy, and (2) alleged misconduct in office warranting expulsion or other punishment, he persistently refused to answer any questions or supply any information except with respect to (1). Somewhat belatedly, he sought to fortify his legal position by asserting that the Committee could, at most, take up (2) only after he had been seated, even though he was at the moment of that claim continuing to receive full pay and other allowances and emoluments. But there is no reason to think that, had the Committee deferred the second aspect of its inquiry until after seating, his basic constitutional position would have been abandoned.
In the context of the kind of misconduct in office involved here,2 I regard that position as untenable. In saying this, I distinguish very sharply between conduct abusing the privileges of House membership, on the one hand, and status or speech, on the other. If the House were to withhold recognition of a member because of his race, or religion, or political or philosophical views, there would indeed have been an addition to qualifications without benefit of constitutional amendment. But the allegations in the complaint which suggest that this is such a case are so purely conclusory in character as, under elemental pleading concepts, not to require a hearing on the merits.
Appellant Powell’s cause of action for a judicially compelled seating thus boils down, in my view, to the narrow issue of whether a member found by his colleagues, after notice and opportunity for hearing, to have engaged in official mis*607conduct must, because of the accidents of timing, be formally admitted before he can be either investigated or expelled. The sponsor of the motion to exclude stated on the floor that he was proceeding on the theory that the power to expel included the power to exclude, provided a % vote was forthcoming. It was.3 Therefore, success for Mr. Powell on the merits would mean that the District Court must admonish the House that it is form, not substance, that should govern in great affairs, and accordingly command the House members to act out a charade.
Our already overtaxed courts arguably have more pressing work to do than this, including the hearing and determination of serious and substantial claims of deprivations of civil rights. The only question really presented by this complaint is whether the House must go through the formality of seating a member before it expels him for official misconduct. Unlike the District Court, I am prepared to say that even such a narrow issue confers subject-matter jurisdiction in the familiar sense of (a) a claim arising under the Constitution, (b) a case or controversy, and (c) a statute founding jurisdiction. But the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr was at pains to make clear that the existence of jurisdiction does not invariably require its exercise. The question is one of whether, under all the circumstances and with a wise regard for the nature and capabilities of judicial power and for the respect it must always command, the court is bound to hear and determine a complaint on its merits.4
The challenged action by the House in this case reflects in substance an equation by it of its power to expel for legislative misconduct by a % vote with a power to deny seating for the same reason and by the same vote. That action was rooted in the judgment of the House as to what was necessary or appropriate for it to do to assure the integrity of its legislative performance and its institutional acceptability to the people at large as a serious and responsible instrument of government. That is a judgment which, on this record, presents no impelling occasion for judicial scrutiny.

. For example, the allegedly exclusive power of the House to pass upon the fitness of a member, and the claimed reach of the Speech and Debate Clause, have played no part whatsoever in my vote. I do not profess to know what their precise constitutional meaning is, nor do I say that they are wholly without relevance to a discretionary declination of jurisdiction. I simply have not found it necessary to take them into account in my determination.

. It is argued that the misconduct cannot be assumed because Powell was denied procedural due process by his colleagues in the investigation of his activities. But no one can read the record of the Select Committee’s relationships with Powell without concluding that there was no serious purpose upon Powell’s part to participate in the ascertainment of the facts. This was unquestionably due to his fundamental constitutional theory that he was accountable for his conduct only to his constituents. One cannot escape the impression that any procedural problems would have been resolved satisfactorily if there had been willingness to accept the relevance of the alleged misconduct to his continuance in the House. Against this background, I see no need to reinstate the complaint solely to pursue the procedural issues.

. It is true that the Speaker, after inquiry to the Parliamentarian, announced that the motion would carry on a majority vote. All this suggests to me is that, in this instance, Representative Curtis was a better parliamentarian than the Parliamentarian. In any event, the result conformed to the more exacting standard; and for me to guess whether the result would have been different if the Speaker’s ruling had been different would be to engage in the speculation Judge Burger deplores (in. 46).
As to Judge Burger’s implication that I have gotten into the merits, I note only that he, having decided that the words of the Constitution vest in the House the power to judge a member’s fitness, concludes that jurisdiction may be declined to review its exercise in this instance. I, having read the text of the Constitution as declaring a power in the House to expel a member for misconduct in office by a % vote, conclude that jurisdiction may be declined to pursue the narrower question of whether the Constitution requires that the House must first seat before it expels. It would appear that each of us has, preliminarily to concluding whether jurisdiction must be exercised, gone no further in deciding questions of “textual commitment” than is contemplated by the majority opinion in Baker v. Carr.

. The factors that are relevant to this kind of a determination obviously include the nature of the relief sought — in this case, injunction, mandamus, and declaratory judgment. All have traditionally been regarded as reposing peculiarly in the discretion of the court and as subject to denial, even after hearing on the merits, for reasons unrelated to the merits. The potential embarrassments and confusions, both within the House and between it and the judicial and executive banches, inevitable upon their grant in this case are worthy of sober remark. These and like matters are legitimately the setting in which are to be considered the urgencies, in terms of simple justice, of the bringing to bear of judicial power.