Court Opinion

ID: 9690747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:40:20.63217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:03.708720
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In light of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677, 93 S.Ct. 1764, 36 L.Ed.2d 583 (1973) and Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636, 95 S.Ct. 1225, 43 L.Ed.2d 574 (1975) I feel bound to reluctantly concur but not without deploring the necessity of judicial exercise of the legislative functions of government. The Congress presumably, after giving the problem due consideration and weighing the pertinent facts, enacted the legislation in question. If there are to be presumptions it would be but fair to the legislative branch to presume that their enactments were designed to be rationally related to the goal which they desired to achieve. By this decision it seems to me that the court is creating a new class of beneficiaries which Congress did not create.
Reference is made by defendant to an estimate that if all persons eligible for the benefits sought by plaintiff received the payments requested, the cost would be a third of a billion dollars. In a day in which the public press speaks of national deficits of sixty to one hundred billion dollars, a mere one-third of a billion may seem de minimis. However, in addition to the classification powers thus assumed by the courts, any such result would, in effect, extend the court’s powers to the public purse. In short and to paraphrase a Biblical saying: I would render unto Congress the things that are Congress’ * and thus avoid a ju*310dicial invasion of the Congressional field, leaving to Congress the privilege to enact such legislation as may be just, proper and constitutionally well based under the circumstances.

 St. Mark, 12.17.