PAST Class 3. June 14

Transcription

1 PAST Class 3 June 14

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3 III THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS The powers delegated by this Constitution are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the Legislative Department shall never exercise powers vested in the Executive or Judicial, nor the Executive exercise powers vested in the Legislative or Judicial, nor the Judicial exercise the powers vested in the Legislative or Executive Departments. -James Madison Introducing the Bill of Rights, June 8, This chapter examines the relationship between the powers of Congress (set forth primarily in Article I) and the powers of the President (generally outlined in Article II). Political scientists often refer to the relationship between the political branches of the federal government in terms of "separation. of powers" and "checks and balances. II These words hide important differences in meaning and emphasis: "separation of powers" suggests noninvolvement of branches that do not possess a specified power, while "checks and balances" $ignifies division and dispersion of a as well as the separation specified power between the branches.. Purposes. The purposes behind separation of powers and checks and balances generally identified by courts and commentators ~re (1) prevention of tyranny and (2) efficiency of administration. Most authorities lay heavy emphasis.on the former. Prevention of Tyranny. Federalist No. 47 stressed that the "accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands*** [is] the very definition of tyranny." Such concentration, which had been comrrion in England's administration of the North American colonies, was a substantial reason for the American Revolution. Separation of powers facilitates the rule of law since different entities make, administer, and interpret the law. During the early years of the United States, the greatest fear was of overreaching legislative power; in recent decades, the focus has often been on th~ growth of executive p9wer. Only occasionally, as with the Brown and Roe decisions, does the public seem concerned about overreaching judicial power. The checks and balance~ in the Constitution have also been viewed as tools for limiting the size and power of the federal government, since a broad consensus is required to change the status quo. 101

4 102 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS Efficiency. The three-part federal structure was originally seen as a move towards efficiency, a repudiation of the congressional hegemony created under the Articles of Confederation. The framers sought to establish a strong executive to conduct foreign and military affairs more effectively at the federal. level. Ironically, a modern complaint is that separation of powers creates inefficiency in governing,. and other democracies have adopted parliamentary systems for that reason. Approaches.. Academic commentary stresses two dominant modes of a~alyzing separation of powers issues under the Constitution. Formalism demands adherence by each branch to the powers granted that branch. Congress can make laws only if it follows specified procedures. It may not enforce the laws it makes. Conve],'sely, the President enforces laws but may not make them. Functionalism commands fidelity. to the purposes of the distribution of powers. For the functionalist, the Constitution's distribution of powers is violated only if one branch of the federal government aggrandizes its power at the expense of another branch.. In a nutshell, the formalist takes separation of powers as a command of the Constitution's text and structure; the functionalist views such separation as.a component of fulfilling the Constitution's goals. There are problems with this dichotomy, both theoretical and practical. Theoretically, there is a lack of clarity or definition to the formalist distinetion between making, executing, and adjudicating; there is a lack of understanding in the functionalist approach as to precisely how separation of powers facilitates the goals discussed above. Moreover, it is not altogether clear that this dichotomy is coherent: the cases use it sparingly, and both schools share concerns over both separating functions and avoiding power imbalances among the three branches of the federal government. Practically, the dichotomy leads to different result~, not merely at the margins, but with respect to core aspects of whether operations of the federal government are constitutional. Federal agencies pose a classic example of diverging formalist and functionalist results. The Constitution does not mention, even generically, agencies like the FTC, FAA, EEOC, NLRB, and.epa. Created by Congress, these agencies generally are subject to varying levels of Presidential control, but they are not "departments" of the Executive Branch like the Departme11t of Justice, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. Furthermore, these. agencies frequently combine rulemaking (lawmaking), prosecution of violators (law execution), and claim resolution (adjudication). A pure formalist would conclude that such agencies are unconstitutional: the Constitution does not permit a "fourth branch" of the federal government, much less a fourth branch that combines Article I, II, and III powers. The formalist responds to the complaint "This is how the federal government has done business for nearly a century," with the response that authorization of fourth branch agencies requires constitutional amendment. The

5 A. THE FRAMEWORK 103 functionalist, on the other hand, argues that these agencies are creative tools for delivering federal goods, services, and regulations that are not clearly prohibited by the Constitution. Some fu:r;ictionalists argue that the Constitu,tion only mandates separation of powers at the apex of the federal government: the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. Separation of powers restrictions do not apply to such agencies, they argue: broad rules crafted by Congress as well as congressional oversight and budgetary controls, varying degrees of Presidential control over personnel, and judicial review, although restrained, provide ample controls over exercise of governmental power by such agencies. The cases below d~monstrate that the Supreme Court's decisions concerning the distribution of federal powers take place within a wide variety of contexts and contain differing mixes of formal and functional components. As you will see, the cases in this chapter include the President's authority to initiate policy, both domestic and foreign; the Presid'ent's ability to "veto" parts of legislation; Presidential privileges, including confidentiality and immunity from suit; the roles of Congress and the President (and even the courts) in appointing and removing. federal officials; "legislative veto" by Congress or parts of Congress. The following case is widely perceived to be the Supreme Court's most. important decision concerning the relationship between e~ecutive and legislative powers. Part B of this chapter examines- executive powers, both in domestic and foreign affairs contexts, and explores executive privileges. Part C deals with the powers of Congress relative to the President. Finally, Part D considers separation of powers issues among the Congress, the President, and the Court in times of war. The. powers of Congress as they relate to state power are reserved for later chapters. A. THE FRAMEWORK Harry Truman's popularity plummeted between the start of the Korean War and early At that time, Truman believ~d a union-management dispute between the steel mills and the Steelworkers' Union threatened the nation's ability to press forward in Korea. Truman, however, refused to use the injunctive powers granted to hfm under the Taft-Hartley Act (which Congress had passed over his veto) to halt a proposed strike, because he perceived that management intrapsigence, not union recalcitrance, caused the steel crisis. On April 9, 1952, he seized the steel mills and designated management to keep them operating for the United States. Management feared the President would try to solve the labor-management dispute by unilaterally raising wages. President Truman was promptly sued by Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company, which argued that his action was unconstitutional. The Court's decision to grant certiorari was made only hours before a planned announcement that the parties, under the pressure of Truman's seizure of the mills, had reached a settlement. When the parties learned of the Court's action, bargaining ceased: management perceived that it had nothing to lose

6 104 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS by awaiting a Supreme Court decision. After the Court' s ruling (only two months after_ the seizure of the mills), the union struck for fifty-three days; neither a steel shortage nor any noticeable impact on the war effort materialized. In light of this brief history, do you think the Court was too hasty? Was the Administration's position, described by the justices, excessive? Incidentally, Truman's memoirs show him to be unrepentant: "[We cannot] separate the economic facts from the problems of defense and security. [The President,] who is Commander in Chief and who represents the interests of all the people, must be able to act at all times to meet any sudden threat to the national security." 2 H.S. TRUMAN, MEMOIRS: YEARS OF TRIAL AND HOPE 478 (1956). YOUNGSTOWN SHEET & TUBE CO. v. SAWYER 343 U.S. 579 (1952) MR. JUSTICE.BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court. We are asked to decide whether the President was acting within his constitutional power when he issued an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate most of the Nation's steel mills. The mill owners argue that the President's order amounts to lawmaking, a legislative function which the Constitution has expressly c01;1fided to the Congress and not to the President. The Government's position i~ that the order was made on findings of the President that his action was necessary to avert a national catastrophe which would inevitably result from a stoppage of steel production, and that in meeting this grave emergency th_e President was acting within the aggregate of his constitutional powers as the Nation's Chief Executive and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. The issue emerges here from. the following series of events: In the latter part of 1951, a dispute arose between the steel companies ai:id their employees over terms and cori.ditiori.s that should. be included in new collective bargaining agreements. Long-continued conferences failed to resolve the dispute. On December 18, 1951, the employees' representative, United Steelworkers of America, C.I.O., gave notice of an intention to strike when the existing bargaining agreements expired on December 31. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service then intervened in an effort to get labor and management to agree. This failing, the President on December 22, 1951, referred the dispute to the Federal Wage Stabilization Board to investigate and make recommendations for fair and equitable terms of settlement. This Board's report resulted in no settlement. On April 4, 1952, the Union gave notice of a nation-wide strike called to begin at 12:01 a.m. April 9. The indispensability of steel as a component of substantially all weapons and other war materials led the President to believe that the proposed work stoppage would immediately jeopardize our national defense and that governmental seizure of the steel mills was necessary in order to assure the continued availability of steel. Reciting these considerations for his action, the President, a few hours before the strike was. to begin, issued Executive Order The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to take

7 A. THE FRAMEWORK 105 possession of most of the steel mills and keep them. running. The Secretary immediately issued his own possessory orders, calling upon the presidents of the various seized companies to serve as operational.managers for the United States. *** The next morning the President sent a message to Congress reporting his action. Twelve days later he sent a second message. Congress has taken no action. Obeying the Secretary's orders under protest, the companies brought proceedings against him in the District Court. Their complaints charged that the seizure was not authorized by an act of Congress or by any constitutional, provisions. *** -- III-1. "We're Waiting to Hear from the Principal" by Silv~y Jackson Ray/The Kansas City Star, The President's power, if any, to issue the order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself. There is no statute that expressly authorizes the President to take possession of property as he did here. Nor is there any act of Congress to which our attention has been directed from.whieh such a power can fairly be implied. Indeed, we do not understand the Government to rely on statutory authorization for this seizure. There are two statutes which. do authorize the President to take both personal and real property under certain conditions., However, the Government admits that these conditions were not met and that the President's order was not rooted in either of. the statutes. The Government refers to the seizure provisions of one of these statutes ( 201(b) of the

8 106 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS Defense Production Act) as "much too cumbersome, involved, and timeconsuming for the crisis which was at hand." Moreover, the use of the seizure technique to solve labor disputes in order to prevent work stoppages was not only unauthorized by any congressional enactment; prior to this controversy, Congress had refused to adopt that method of settling labor disputes. When the Taft-Hartley Act was under consideration in 194 7, Congress rejected an amendment which would have authorized such governmental seizures in cases of emergency.*** It is clear that if the President had authority to issue.the order he did, it must be found in some provisions of the Constitution. And it is not claimed that express constitutional language grants this power to the President. The contention is that presidential power should be implied from the aggregate of his powers under the Constitution, Particular reliance is placed on provisions in Article II which say that "the executive Power shall be vested in a President *** "; that "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; and that he"shall be Commander in Chiefofthe Army and Navy of the United States." The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercis~ of the President's military power as Commander. in Chief :of the. Armed Forces. The Government attempts to do :So by citing a nuinber of cases u.pholding broad powers in military commanders engaged in day-to-day fighting in a theater of war! Such cases need not concern us here; Even though,;theater.of war" be an expanding concept, we cannot with faithfulness to our constitutional system hold.that the Commander in Chief of the Armed.Forces has the ultimate power as such to take possession of private property in order to keep labor disputes from stopping production. This is a job for the Nation's lawmakers, not for its military authorities. Nor can the seizure. order be sustained because of the several constitutional provisions that grant executive power to the President. In the framework of our Con~titution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute. The first section of the first article says that "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States" *** The President's order does not. direct that a congressional policy be executed in a manner presc~ibed by Congress-it directs that a presidential policy be executed in a manner prescribed by the President. The preamble of the order itself, like that of many stat1:1tes, sets out reasons why the President believes certain policies should be adopted, proclaims these policies as rules of conduct to be followed, and again, like a statute, authorizes a government official to promulgate additional rules and. regulations consistent with the.policy proclaimed and needed to carry that policy into execution. The power of Congress to adopt such public policies as those proclaimed by the

9 A. THE FRAMEWORK 107 order is beyond question. It can authorize the taking of private property for public use. It can makes laws regulating the relationships between employers and employees, prescribing rules designed to settle labor disputes, and fixing wages and working conditions in certain fields of our economy. The Constitution did not subject this law-making power of Congress to presidential or military supervision or control. It is said that other Presidents without congrf3ssional authority have taken possession of private business enterprises in order to settle labor disputes. But even if this be true, Congress has not thereby lost its exclusive constitutional authority to make laws necessary and proper to carry out the powers. vested by the Constitution "in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." *** [T]his seizure order cannot stand.***. MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, concurring in the judgment and opinion of the court. *** Just what our forefathers did envision, or would have envisioned had they foreseen modern conditions, must be divined from materials almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh. A century and a half of partisan debate and scholarly speculation yields no net result but only supplies more or less apt quotations from respected sources on each side of any question. They largely cancel each other. *** The actual art of governing under our Constitution does not and cannot conform to judicial definitions of the power of any of its branches based on isolated clauses or even single Articles torn from context. While the Constitution diffuses power the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity. Presidential powers are not fixed but fluct.uate, depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress. We may well begin by a somewhat over-simplified grouping of. practical situations in which a President may doubt, or others may challenge, his powers, and by distinguishing roughly the legal consequences of this factor of relativity. 1.. When the President acts. pursuant to an express 'or implied authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate. In these circumstances, and in these only, may he be said (for what it may be worth), to personify the federal sovereignty. If his act is held unconstitutional under these circumstances, it usually means that the Federal Government as an undivided whole lacks power. A seizure executed by the President pursuant to an Act of Congress would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it~ 2. When the. President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or :iri which its distribution is uncertain. Therefore, congressional inertia, indifference or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical

10 108 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility. In this area, any actual test of power is likely to depend on the imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on abstract theories of law. 3. When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive Presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system. Into which of these classifications does this executive seizure of the steel industry fit? It is eliminated from the first by admission, for it is conceded that no congressional authorization exists for this seizure. ***Can it then be defended under flexible tests available to the second category? It seems clearly eliminated from that class because Congress has not left seizure of private property an -open field but has covered it by three statutory policies inconsistent with this seizure. *** This leaves the current seizure to be justified only by the severe tests under the third grouping, where it can be supported only by any remainder of executive power after. subtraction of such powers as Congress may have over the subject. In short, we can sustain the President only by holding that seizure. of such strike-bound industries is within his domain and beyond control by Congress. *** The Solicitor General seeks. the power of seizure in three clauses of the Executive Article, the first reading, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United St.ates of America." Lest I be thought to exaggerate, I quote.the interpretation which his brief puts.upon it: "In our view, this clause constitutes a grant of all the executive powers of which the Government is capable.,; If that be true, it is difficult to see why the forefathers bothered to add several specific items, including some trifling ones. ***I cannot accept the view that this Clause is a grant in bulk of all conceivable executive power but regard it as an allocation to the presidential office of the generic powers thereafter stated. The clause on which the Government next relies is that "The President shall be Commander in Chief***." But just what' authority goes with the name has plagued Presidential advisers who would not waive or narrow it by nonassertion yet cannot say where it begins or ends. It undoubtedly puts the Nation's armed forces under Presidential command. Hence, this loose appellation is sometimes advanced as support for any Presidential action, internal or external, involving use of force, the idea being that it vests power to do anything, anywhere, that can be done with an army or navy. That seems to be the logic of an argument tendered at our bar-that the President having, on his own responsibility, sent American troops abroad derives from that act "affirmative power" to seize the means of producing a supply of steel for them. *** Assuming that we are in a war de facto, whether

11 A. THE FRAMEWORK 109 it is or is not a war de jure, does that empower the Commander-in-Chief to seize industries he thinks necessary to supply our army? The Constitution expressly places in Congress power "to raise and support Armies" and "to provide and maintain a Navy." This certainly lays upon Congress primary responsibility for supplying the armed forces. Congress alone controls the raising of revenues and their appropriation and may determine in what manner and by what means they shall be spent for military and naval procurement. ***[T]he Constitution did not contemplate that the title Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy will constitute. him also Commander-in-Chief of the country, its industries and its inhabitants. He has no monopoly of "war powers," whatever they are.*** The third clause in which the Solicitor General finds seizure powers is that "he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully e-x-ecuted ***." That authority must be matched against words of the Fifth Amendment that 0 No person shall be*** deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law***." The Solicitor General lastly grounds support of the seizure upon nebulous, inherent powers never expressly granted- but said to have accrued to the office from the customs and claims of preceding administrations. The plea is for a resulting power to deal with a crisis or an emergency according to the necessities of the case, the unarticulated assumption being that necessity knows no law. *** The claim of inherent and unrestricted presidential powers has long been a persuasive dialectical weapon in political controversy.*~* The appeal, however, that we declare the existence of inherent powers ex necessitate to meet an emergency asks us to do what many think would be wise, although it is something the forefathers omitted. They knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation. We may also suspect that they suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies. Aside from suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in time of rebellion or invasion, when the public safety may require it, they made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis. I do not think we rightfully may so amend their work, and, if we could, I am not convinced it would be wise to do so, although many modern nations have forthrightly recognized that war and economic crises may upset the normal balance between liberty and authority. Their experience with emergency powers may not be irrelevant to the argument here that we should say that the Executive, of his own volition, ca,n invest himself with undefined emergency powers. *** In view of the ease, expedition and safety with which Congress can grant and has granted large emergency powers, certainly ample to embrace this crisis, I am quite unimpressed. with the argument that we should affirm possession of them without statute. Such power either has no beginning or it has no end. If it exists, it need submit to no legal restraint. I am not alarmed that it would plunge us straightway into dictatorship, but it is at least a step in that wrong direction.

12 110 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS As to whether there is imperative necessity for such powers, it is relevant to note the gap that exists between the President's paper powers and his real powers. The Constitution does not disclose the measure of the actual controls wielded by the modern presidential office. That instrument must be understood as an Eighteenth-Century sketch of a government hoped for, not as a blueprint of the Government that is. Vast accretions of federal. power, eroded from that reserved by the States, have magnified the scope. of presidential activity. Subtle shifts take place in the centers of real power that do not show on the face of the Constitution. Executive power has the advantage of concentration in a single head in whose choice the whole Nation has a part, making him the focus of public hopes and expectations. *** The executive action we have here originates in the individual will of the. President and represents an exercise of authority without law. No one, perhaps not even the President, knows the limits of the power he may seek to exert in this instanc.e and the parties affected cannot learn the limit of their rights. We do not know today what powers over. labor or property would be claimed to flow from Government. possession if we should legalize it, what rights to compensation would be claimed or recognized, or on what contingency it would end. With all its defects, delays. and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long.preserving free government except that.the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations. Such institutions may be destined to pass away. But it is the duty of the Court to b~ last, notfirst, to give them up. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring~ [The] legislative nature of the action taken by the President seems to me to be clear. *** The President might seize and the Congress by subsequent action might ratify the seizure. But until and unless Congress acted, no condemnation would be lawful. The branch of government that has the power to pay compensation for a seizure is the only one able. to authorize a seizure or make lawfol one that the President had effected. That seems to me to be the necessary result of the condem.nation provision in the Fifth Amendment. *** Today a kindly President uses the seizure power to effect a wage increase and to keep the steel furnaces in production. Yet tomorrow another President might use the same power to prevent a wage increase, to curb trade unionists, to regiment labor as oppressively. as industry thinks it has been regimented by this seizure. MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring. *** The question before the Court comes in this setting. Congress has. frequently-at least 16 times since 1916-specifically provided for executive seizure of production, transportation, communications, or storage facilities. In every case it has qualified this grant of power with limitations and. safeguards. This body of enactments *** demonstrates that Congress. deemed seizure so drastic a power as to require that it be carefully circumscribed

13 A. THE FRAMEWORK. 111 whenever the President was vested with this extraordinary authority. ***In any event, nothing can be plainer than that Congress made a conscious choice of policy in a field full of perplexity and peculiarly within legislative responsibility for choice. In formulating legislation for dealing with industrial conflicts, Congress could not more clearly and emphatically have withheld authority than it did in [the Taft-Hartley Act of] ***It cannot be contended that the President would have had power to issue this order had Congress explicitly negated such authority in formal legislation. Congress has expressed its will to withhold this power from the President as though it had said so in so many words. *** MR. CHIEF JUSTICE VINSON, with whom MR. JUSTICE REED and MR.. JUSTICE MINTON join, dissenting. *** Plaintiffs do not remotely suggest any basis for rejecting the President's finding that any stoppage of steel production would immediately place the Nation in peril. Under [Plaintiff's] view, the President is left powerles.s at the very moment when the need for action may.be most pressing. and when no one, other than he, is immediately capable of action. *** A review of executive action demonstrates that our Presidents have on many occasions exhibited the leadership contemplated by the Framers when they made the President Commander in Chief, and imposed upon him the trust to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." With or without explicit statutory authorization, Presidents have at such times dealt with national emergencies by acting promptly and resolutely to enforce legislative programs, at le~st to save those programs until Congress could act. *** The broad executive power granted by Article II to an officer on duty 365 days a year cannot, it is said, be invoked to avert disaster. Instead, the President must confine himself to sending a message to Congress recommending action. Under this messenger-boy concept of the Office, the President cannot even act to preserve legislative programs from destruction so that Congress will have something left to act upon. *** Faced with the duty of executing the defense programs which Congress had enacted and the disastrous effects that any stoppage in steel production would have on.those programs, the President acted to preserve those programs by seizing the steel mills. There is no question that the possession was other than temporary in character and subject to congressional direction-either approving, disapproving or regulating the manner in which the mills were to be administered and returned to the owners. The President immediately informed Congress of his action and clearly stated his intention to abide by the legislative will. No basis for claims of arbitrary action, unlimited powers or dictatorial usurpation of congressional power appears from the facts of this case. *** Notes 1. Constitutional Theory. There is no majority rationale in Youngstown. Each of the opinions adopts a very different methodology for assessing the constitutionality of the seizure of the mills.

14 112 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS (a) Under JUSTICE BLACK's formalist approach, does the President's power depend at all on whether Congress has or has not acted? Does JUSTICE DOUGLAS solve this problem? (b) Under JUSTICE JACKSON'S functionalist approach, how does the Court decide which zone fits any particular action of the President? (c) What do you think of the uses of history by JUSTICE FRANKFURTER and the dissenters? ( d) Do you agree with the Court that, whatever the substantive outcome of the case, this is a proper decision for the Supreme Court to be making? Why or why not? 2. Fluctuating Powers Approach. JUSTICE JACKSON's concurrence breaks the actions of the President into three categories: (1) Where the President acts in accord with the express or implied authorization of Congress, (2) Where the President acts in the absence of any Congressional declaration on the matter, and (3) Where the President acts in direct contradiction to the express or implied will of Congress. The President's powers fluctuate with each category, being the greatest in the first category. and the least in the third category. Although JUSTICE JACKSON wrote only for himself l.n his concurrence, his approach appears to be the one accepted by today's Court, see Dames & Moore v. Regan, infra. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, author of the Court's opinion in Dames & Moore, was JU~TICE JACKSON's. clerk at the time Youngstown was decided. B. EXECUTIVE POWERS, PRIVILEGES, AND IMMUNITY 1. EXECUTIVE POWERS The Youn,gstown framework is theoretically applicable to the entire range of authority problems that might arise between the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government. In fact, as the following cases demonstrate, other factors besides this framework may play important roles in the outcomes of specific separation of powers.. cases. One important corl:side:ration seems to be whether the contextis domestic or foreign affairs. a. Domestic Alf airs CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK 524 U.S. 417 (1998) JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court. The Line Item Veto Act (Act) was enacted in April 1~96 and became effective on January 1, The following day, six Members of Congress who. had voted against the Act brought suit in the District Court for the District of Columbia challenging its constitutionality. *** We determined, however, that the Members of Congress did not have standing to sue because they had not "alleged a sufficiently concrete injury to have established Article III standing," Raines v. Byrd. *** Less than two months after our decision in that case, the President exercised his authority to cancel one provision in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and two provi.sions in the Taxpayer Relief Act

15 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 113 of Appellees, claiming that they had been injured by two of those cancellations, filed these cases *** We now hold that these appellees have standing *** and, reaching the merits, we agree that the cancellation procedures set forth in the Act violate the Presentment Clause, Art. I, 7, cl. 2, of the Constitution. We begin by reviewing the canceled items that are at issue in these cases. Section 4722(c) of the Balanced Budget Act. Title XIX of the Social Security Act authorizes the Federal Government to transfer huge sums of money to the States to help finance medical care for the indigent. In 1991, Congress directed that those federal subsidies be reduced by the amount of certain taxes levied by the States on health care providers. In 1994, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified the State of New York that 15 of its taxes were covered by the 1991 Act, and that as of June 30, 1994, the statute therefore required New York to return $955 million to the United States.*** New York turned to Congress for relief. On August 5, 1997, Congress enacted a law that resolved the issue in New York's favor. Section 4722(c) of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 identifies the disputed taxes and provides that they "are deemed to be permissible health care related taxes and in compliance with. the requirements" of the relevant provisions of the 1991 statute. On August 11, 1997, the President sent identical notices to the Senate and to the House of Representatives canceling "one item of new direct $pendfng," specifying 4 722(c) as that item, and stating that he had determined that "this cancellation will reduce the Federal budget deficit" *** and that 0 [t]his preferential treatment would have increased Medicaid costs, would have treated New York differently from all other States, and would have established a costly precedent for other States to request comparable treatment." Section 968 ofthe Taxpayer Relief Act. A person who realizes a profit from the sale of securities is generally subject to a capital gains tax. Under existing law, however, an ordinary business corporation can acquire a corporation, including a food processing or refining company; in a merger or stock-for-stock transaction in which no gain is recognized to the seller; the seller's tax payment, therefore, is deferred. If, however, the purchaser is a farmers' cooperative, the parties cannot structure such a transaction because the stock of the cooperative may be held only by its members; thus, a seller dealin,g with a farmers' cooperative cannot obtain the benefits of tax deferral. In 968 of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, Congress amended 1042 of the Internal Revenue Code to permit owners of certain food refiners and processors to defer the recognition of gain if they sell their stock to eligible farmers' cooperatives. The purpose of the amendment, as repeatedly explained.by its sponsors, was "to facilitate the transfer of refiners and processors to farmers' cooperatives." *** On the same date that he canceled the "item of new direct spending" involving New York's health care programs, the President also canceled this limited tax benefit. In his explanation of that action, the President endorsed

16 114 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS the objective of encouraging "value-added farming through the purchase by farmers' cooperatives of refiners or processors of agricultural goods," but concluded that the provision lacked safeguards and also "failed to target its benefits to small-and-medium-size cooperatives."*** The Line Item Veto Act gives the President the power to "cancel in whole" three types of provisions that have been signed into law: "(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; (2) any item of new direct spending; or (3) any limited tax benefit." It is. undisputed that the New York case involves an "item of new direct spending" and that the Snake River case involves a "limited tax benefit" as those terms.are defined in the Act. It is also undisputed that each of those provisions had been signed into law pursuant to Article I, 7 of the Constitution before it was canceled. The Act re-quires the President to adhere to precise procedures whenever he exercises his cancellation authority. In identifying items for cancellation he must consider the legislative history, the purposes, and other relevant information ab.out the item. He must determine, with respect to each cancellation, that it will "(i) reduce the Federal budget deficit; (ii) not impair any essential.government functions; and (iii) not harm the national interest." Moreover, he must transmit a special message to Congress notifying. it of each cancellation within five calendar days (excluding Sundays) after the enactment of the canceled provision. It is undisputed that the President meticulouslyfollowed these procedures.in these cases. A cancellation takes effect upon receipt by Congress of the special message from the President. If, however, a "disapproval bill" pertaining to a special message is enacted into law, the cancellations set forth in that message become "null and void." The Act sets forth a detailed expedited procedure for the consideration of a "disapproval bill," but no such bill was passed for either of the cancellations involved in these cases. *** In both legal and practical effect, the President has amended two Acts of Congress by repealing a portion of each. *** There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the President to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes. *** The President *** may initiate and influence.legislative proposals. Moreover, after a bill has passed both Houses of Congress; but "before it become[s] a 'Law," it must be presented to the President. If he approves it, "he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it~ with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections. at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it." Art. I, 7, cl. 2. His "return" of a bill, which is usually described as a "veto," is subject to being overridden by a two-thirds vote in each House. There are important differences between the President's "return" of a bill pursuant to Article I, 7, and the exercise of the President's cancellation authority pursuant to the Line Item Veto Act. The constitutional return takes. place before the bill becomes law; the statutory cancellation occurs after the bill becomes law. The constitutional return is of the entire bill; the statutory cancellation is of only a part. Although the Constitution expressly.authorizes the President to play a role in the process of enacting statutes, it is silent on

17 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 115. the subject of unilateral Presidential action that either repeals or amends parts of duly enacted. statutes. There are powerful reasons for construing constitutional silence on this profoundly important issue as equivalent to an express prohibition. *** Familiar historical materials provide abundant support. for the conclusion that the power to enact statutes may only "be exercised in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure." Chadha. Our first President und~rstood the text of the Presentment Clause as requiring that he either "approve all the parts of a Bill, or reject it in toto." What has emerged.in these cases from the President's exercise of his statutory cancellation powers, however, are truncated versions of two bills that passed. both Houses of Congress. They are no~ the product of the "finely wrought" procedure that the Framers designed. At oral argument, the Government suggested that the cancellations at issue in these cases do not effect a "repeal" of the canceled items because under the special "lockbox" provisions of the Act, 31 a canceled item "retain[s] real, legal budgetary effect" insofar as it prevents Congress and the President from spending the savings that result from the cancellation. The text of the Act expressly provides, however, that a cancellation prevents a direct spending or tax benefit provision, "from having legal force or effect." That a canceled item may have "real, legal budgetary effect" as a result of the lockbox procedure does not change the fact that by canceling the items at issue in these cases, the President made them entirely inoperative as to. appellees. Section 968 of the Taxpayer Relief Act no longer provides a tax benefit, and 4722(c) of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 no longer relieves New York of its contingent liability. Such significant changes do not lose their character simply because the canceled provisions may have some continuing financial effect on the Government.. The cancellation of one section of a statute may be the functional equivalent of a partial repeal even if a portion of the section is not canceled. The Government advances two related arguments to support its position that despite the unambiguous provisions of the Act, cancellations do not amend or repeal properly enacted statutes in violation of the Presentment Clause. First, relying primarily on Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, the Government. contends that the cancellations were merely exercises of discretionary authority granted to the President by the Balanced Budget Act and the Taxpayer Relief Act read in light of the previously enacted Line Item Veto Act. Second, the Government submits that the substance. of the authority to cancel tax and spending items "is, in practical effect, no more and no less than the power to 'decline to spend' specified sums of money, or to 'decline to implement' specified tax measures." Neither argument is,persuasive. In Field v. Clark, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Tariff Act of That statute contained a "free list" of almost 300 specific articles that 31 The lockbox procedure ensures that savings resulting from cancellations are used to reduce the defiqit, rather than to offset deficit increases arising from other laws. ***

18 116 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS were exempted from import duties "unless otherwise specially provided for in this act." Section 3 was a special provision that directed the President to suspend that exemption for sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides "whenever? and so often" as he should be satisfied that any country producing and exporting those products imposed duties on the agricultural products of the United States that he deemed to be "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable ***." The section then specified the duties to be imposed on those products during any such suspension. The Court provided this explanation for its conclusion that 3 had not delegated legislative power to the President: Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President. *** [W]hen he ascertained the fact that duties and exactions, reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, were imposed upon the agricultural or other products of the United States by a country producing and exporting sugar, molasses, coffee, tea or hides, it became his duty to issue a proclamation declaring the suspension, as to that country, which Congress had determined should occur. He had no discretion in the premises except in ree)pect to the duration of the suspension so ordered. But that related only to the enforcement of the policy established by Congress. As the suspension was absolutely required. when.the President ascertained the existence of a particular fact, it cannot be said that in ascertaining that fact and in issuing his proclamation, in obedience to the legislative will, he exe.rcised the function of making laws. *** This passage identifies three critical differences between the power to suspend the exemption from import duties and the power to cancel portion~ of a duly enacted statute. First, the exercise of the suspension power was contingent upon a condition that did not exist when the Tariff Act was passed: the imposition of "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable" import duties by other countries. In contrast, the exercise of the cancellation power within five days after the enactment of the Balanced Budget and Tax Reform Acts necessarily was based on the same conditions. that Congress evaluated when it passed those statutes. Second, under the Tariff Act, when the President determined that the contingency had arisen, he had a duty to suspend; in contrast, while it is true that the President was required by the Act to make three determinations before he canceled a provision, those determinations did not qualify his discretion to cancel or not to cancel. Finally, whenever the President suspended an exemption under the Tariff Act, he was executing the policy that Congress had embodied in the statute. In contrast, whenever the President cancels an item of new direct spending or a limited tax benefit he is rejecting the policy judgment made by Congress and relying on his own policy judgment. Thus, the conclusion in Field v. Clark that the suspensions mandated by the Tariff Act were not exercises Of legislative power does riot undermine our opinion that cancellations pursuant to the Line Item Veto Act are the functional equivalent of partial repeals of Acts of Congress that fail to satisfy Article I, 7. ***

19 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 117 The statutes [cited by the government] all relate to foreign trade, and this Court has recognized that in the foreign affairs arena, the President has "a degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would not be admissible:_ were domestic affairs alon~ involved." United States v. Curtiss Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936). ***The Line Item Veto Act authorizes the President himself to effect the- repeal of laws, for his own policy reasons, without observing the procedures set out in Article I, 7. The fact that Congress intended such a result is of no moment. *** Congress cannot alter the procedures set out in Article I, 7, without amending the Constitution. Neither are we persuaded by the Government's contention that the President's authority to cancel new direct spending and tax benefit items is no greater than his traditional authority to decline to spend appropriated funds. The Government has reviewed in some detail the series of statutes in which Congress has given the Executive broad discretion over the expenditure of appropriated funds. *** The critical di(ference between this statute and all of its predecessors, however, is that unlike any of them, this Act gives the President the unilateral power to change the text of duly enacted statutes. None of the Act's predecessors could even arguably hav.e been construed to authorize such a change.*** [T]he profound importance of these cases makes it appropriate to emphasize three points. First, we, express no opinion about the wisdom of the procedures authorized by the Line Item Veto Act. *** Second, although appellees challenge the validity of the Act on alternative grounds, the only issue we address concerns the "finely wrought" procedure commanded by the Constitution. Chadha. *** [W]e find it unnecessary to consider the District Court's alternative holding that the Act "impermissibly disrupts the balance of powers among the three branches of government." Third, our decision rests on the narrow ground that the procedures authorized by the Line Item Veto Act are n<,>t authorized by the Constitution. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is a 500-page document that became "Public Law " after three. procedural steps were taken: (1) a bill containing its. exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may "become a law:" If one paragraph of that text had been omitted at any one of those three stages, Public Law would not have been validly enacted. If the Line Item Veto Act were valid, it would authorize the President to create a different law-one whose text was not voted on by either House of Congres~ or presented to the. President for signature. Something that might be. known as "Public Law as modified by the President" may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may "become a law" pursuant to the procedures designed by the Framers of Article I, 7, of the Constitution.*** JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring. *** I write to respond to my colleague JUSTICE BREYER, who observes that the statute does not threaten the liberties of individual citizens, a point on

20 118 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS which I disagree. *** To say the political branches have a somewhat free hand to reallocate their own authority would seem to require acceptance of two premises: first, that the public good demands it, and second, that. liberty is not at risk. The former premise is- inadmissible. The Constitution's structure requires a stability which transcends. the convenience of the moment. The latter premise, too, is flawed. Liberty is always at stake when one or more of the branches seek to transgress the separation of powers. *** The law establishes a new mechanism which gives the President the sole ability to hurt a group that is a visible target, in order to disfavor the group or to extract further concessions from Congress. The law is the functional equivalent of a line item veto and enhances the President's powers beyond what the Framers wo~ld have endorsed. It is no answer, of course, to say that Congress surrendered its authority by its own hand; nor does it suffice to point out that a new statute, signed by the President or enacted over his veto, could restore to Congress the power it now seeks to relinquish. That a congressional cession of power is voluntary does not make it innocuous. *** Separation of powers helps to ensure the ability of each branch to be vigorous in asserting its proper authority. ***By increasing the power of the President beyond what the Framers envisioned, the statute compromises the political liberty of our citizens, liberty which the separation of powers. seeks to secure. The Constitution is not bereft of controls over improvident spending. Federalism is one safeguard, for political accountability is easier to enforce within the States than nationwide. The other principal mechanism, of course, is control of the political branches by an informed and responsible electorate. '. JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR joins, and with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins *** concurring in part and dissen~ing in part. ***In my view, the Snake River appellees lack standing to challenge the President's cancellation of the '"limited tax benefit," *** [T]he New York appellee.s have standing to challenge the President's cancellation of an "item of new direct spending"; but *** I find the President's cancellation of spending items to be entirely in accord with the Constitution. *** The Presentment Clause *** no more categorically prohibits the Executive reduction of congressional dispositions in the course of implementing statutes that authorize such reduction, than it categorically prohibits the Executive augmentation of congressional dispositions in the course. of implementing statutes that authorize such augmentationgenerally known as substantive rulemaking. *** [L]imits are established, however; not by.some categorical prohibition of Art. I, 7, which our cases conclusively disprove, but by what has come to be known as the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority: When authorized Executive reduction or augmentation is allowed to go too far, it usurps the nondelegable function of Congress and vioiates the separation of powers. It is this doctrine, and not the Presentment Clause, that was discussed in the Field opinion, and it is this doctrine, and not the Presentment Clause, that is the issue presented by the statute before us here. That is why the

21 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 119 Court is correct to distinguish prior authorizations of Executive cancellation, such as the one involved in Field, on the ground that they were contingent upon an Executive finding of fact, and on the ground that they related to the field of foreign affairs, an area where the President has a special "degree of discretion and freedom." These distinctions have nothing to do with whether the detaiis of Art. I, 7 have been complied with, but everything to do with whether the authorizations went too far by transferring to the Executive a degree of political, lawmaking power that our traditions demand be retained by the Legislative Branch. I turn, then, to the crux of the matter: whether Congress's authorizing the President to cancel an item of spending gives him a power that our history and traditions show must reside.exclusively in the Legislative Branch. *** Insofar as the degree of political, "lawmaking" power conferred upon the Executive is concerned, there is not a dime's worth of difference between Congress's authorizing the President to cancel a spending item, and Congress's authorizing money to be spent on a particular item at the President's discretion. And the latter has been done since the Founding of the Nation. From , the First Congress made lump-sum appropriations for the entire Government-"sum[s] not exceeding" specified amounts for broad purposes. From a very early date Congress also made permissive individual appropriations, leaving the decision whether to spend the money to the President's unfettered discretion. *** The constitutionality of such appropriations has never seriously been questioned. *** Certain Presidents have claimed Executive authority to withhold appropriated funds even absent an express conferral of discretion to do so. In 1876, for example; President Grant reported to Congress that he would not spend money appropriated for certain harbor. and river improvements *** President Franklin n. Roosevelt impounded funds appropriated for a flood control reservoir and levee in Oklahoma.. President Truman ordered the impoundment of hundreds of millions of dollars that had been appropriated for military aircraft. President Nixon, the Mahatma Ghandi of all impounders, asserted at a press conference in 1973 that his "constitutional right" to impound appropriated funds was "absolutely clear." *** The short of the matter is this: Had the Line Item Veto Act authorized the President to "decline to spend" any item of spending contained in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, there is not the slightest doubt that authorization would have been constitutional. What the Line Item Veto Act does instead-authorizing the President to "cancei" an item of spending..;.._is technically different. But the technical difference does not relate to the technicalities of the Presentment Clause, which have been fully complied with; and the doctrin.e of unconstitutional delegation, which is at issue here, is preeminently not a doctrine of technicalities. The title of the Line Item Veto Act, which was perhaps designed to simplify. for public comprehension, or perhaps merely to comply with the terms of a campaign pledge, has succeeded in faking out the Supreme Court. The President's action it authorizes in fact is not a line-item veto and thus does not offend Art. I, 7; and insofar as the substance of that action is concerned, it is no different from

22 120 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS what Congress has permitted the President to do since the formation of the Union.*** Notes 1. Congress' Options. Is there any way Congress can respond effectively to this decision? (a) Consider the option of a constitutional amendment. Other than the difficulty of passage, how might you word such an amendment if you favored giving the President line-item veto authority? (b) Is there any way to accomplish the same goal through legislation? Consider the feasibility and desirability of Congress defining "to cancel" as meaning."to decline to spend or enforce." (c) Could Congress overcome the Court's decision through legislation establishing more explicit standards the President could use in declining to spend or in canceling a tax benefit? (d) Why not simply separately enroll each provision of an omnibus spending or tax bill? 2. Significance of the Line Item Veto Power. Given how minor the, provisions were that President Clinton "vetoed," are you skeptical that anything significant would ever be accomplished through a "line item veto"? Some political analysts think the real significance of the President's power might be that he would never have to use it, except in symbolic situations. 3. Problem. On March 8, 1995, President,Clinton issued Executive Order No. 12,954, which declared that it was the policy of the United States in procuring goods and services to cease contracting with companies that permanently replaced lawfully striking workers.. In Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, 74 F.3d 1322 (D.C. Cir. 1996), the Circuit Court of Appeals held that this order was preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, which, nearly fifty years earlier, had been interpreted by the Supreme Court as allowing companies permanently to replace lawful strikers. Most government contractor companies are also subject to the National Labor Relations Act. The preemption rationale of the Court of Appeals was developed by analogy from the doctrine of the preemptive supremacy of federal law over state law, which you will study in Chapte;r v: You are an advisor to President Clinton. Should he appeal this loss to the Supreme Court? 4. Presidential Orders. Was President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation legislative? Are all Executive Orders legislative? b. Foreign Affairs Is the separation of powers between the President and Congress different when "foreign affairs" are involved? What is the Court's role in such cases? The next three cases help to answer these questipns. UNITED STATES v. CURTISS-WRIGHT 299 U.S. 304 (1936). MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND delivered the opinion of the Court. On January 27, 1936, an indictment was returned in the court below, the first count of which charges that appellees, *** conspired to sell in the United States certain arms of war, namely, fifteen machine guns, to Bolivia, a country then engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco, in violation of the Joint

23 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 121 Resolution of Congress approved May 28, 1934, and the provisions of a proclamation issued on the same day by the President of the United States pursuant to authority conferred by section 1 of the resolution. ***The Joint Resolution [states]: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if the President finds that the prohibition of the sale of arms and munitions of war in the United States to those countries now engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco niay contribute to the reestablishment of peace b.etween those countries, and *** he makes proclamation to that effect, it shall be unlawful to sell *** any arms or munitions of war in any place in the United States to the countries novv engaged in that armed conflict, or to any person, company, or association acting in the interest of either country, until otherwis.e ordered by the President or by Congress. *** Whether, if the Joint Resolution had related solely to internal affairs, it would be open to the challenge that it constituted an.unlawful delegation of legislative power to tlie Executive, we find it unnecessary to determine. The whole aim of the re.solution is to affect a.situation entirely external to the United States, and falling within the category of foreign affairs. The determination which we are called to make,' therefore, is whether the Joint Resolution, as applied to that situation, is vulnerable to attack under the rule that forbids a delegation of the lawmaking power. In other words, assuming (but not deciding) that the challenged delegation, if it were confined to internal affairs, would be invalid, inay it nevertheless be sustained on the ground that its exclusive aim is to afford a remedy for a hurtful condition within foreign territory?. It will contribute to the elucidation of the question if we first consider the differences between the powers of the federal government in respect of foreign or external affairs and those in respect of domestic or internal affairs. That there are differences between them, and that these differences. are fundamental, may not be doubted. The two classes of powers are different, both in respect of their. origiri and their nature. The broad statement that the federal government can exercise no powers except those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and such implied powers as are necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers, is categorically. true only in respect of our internal affairs. In that field, the primary purpose of the Constitution was to carve from the general mass oflegislative powers then possessed by the states such pprtions as it was thought desirable to vest in the federal government, leaving those not included in the enumeration still in the states. That this doctrine applies only to powers which the states had is self-evident. And since. the states severally never possessed international powers, such powers could not have been carved from the mass of state powers but obviously were transmitted to the United States from some other source. *** As a result of the separation from Great Britain by the colonies, acting as a unit, the powers of external sovereignty passed from the Crown not to the

24 122 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS colonies severally, but to the colonies in their collective and corporate capacity as the United States of America. ~** Rulers come and go; governments end and forms of government change; but sovereignty survives. A political society cannot endure without a supreme will somewhere. Sovereignty is never held in suspense. When, therefore, the external sovereignty of Great Britain in respect of the colonies ceased, it immediately passed to the Union. *** It results that the investment of the federal government with the powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon the affirmative grants of the Constitution. The powers to declare and wage war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereignties, if they had never been mentioned in the Constitution, would have vested in the federal government a.s necessary concomitants of nationality. *** In this vast external realm, with its important, complicated, delicate and manifold problems, the President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it. As Marshall saidin his great argument of March 7, 1800, in the House of Representatives, 'The President is the sole organ of the nation in its. external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.' *** [W]e are here dealing not alone with an authority vested in the President by an exertion of legislative power, but with such an authority plus the very delicate~ plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations-a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress, but which, of course, like every other governmental power, must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution. It is quite apparent that.if, in the maintenance of our international relations, embarrassment-perhaps serious embarrassment-is to be avoided and success for our aims achieved, congressional legislation which is to be made effective. through negotiation and inquiry within the international field must often accord to the President a degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would not be admissible were domestic affairs alone involved. Moreover, he, not Congress, has the better opportunity of knowing the conditions which prevail m foreign countries, arid especially is this true in time of war. He has his confidential sources of information. He has his agents in the form of diplomatic, consular and other officials. Secrecy in respect of information gathered by them may be highly necessary, and the premature disclosure of it productive of harmful results. *** MR. JUSTICE MCREYNOLDS does not agree. *** MR. JUSTICE STONE took no part in the consideration or decision of this case. Notes 1. Implied Presidential Powers. Could this case have been decided without reference to the Constitution? Doesn't the Court's starting point seem diametrically opposite that of Youngstown and other cases involving constitutional allocation of domestic affairs powers? Were the broad pronouncements about Presidential power necessary to the decision? As an

25 B.. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 123 interesting aside, Justice Department lawyers representing the President have. been known to refer to the case informally as "Curtis.s-Wright, so I'm right." 2. Preconstitutional Powers. Why does the Court say the President is "the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations"? Is the text clear on this? Is historical practice clear? Are you comfortable with the Court's assessment of preconstitutional pow:ers? 3. Functionalism. What preconceptions about the type of foreign policies the United States should have are implicit in the Court's analysis? DAMES & MOORE v. REGAN 453 U.S. 654 (1981) JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court. *** On November 4, 1979, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized and our diplomatic personnel were captured and held hostage. In response to that crisis, President Carter, acting pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (hereinafter IEEPA), declared a national emergency on November 14, 1979, and blocked the removal or"transfer of "all property and interests in property of the Government of Iran, its instrumentalities and controlled entities and the Central Bank of Iran which are or become. subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. *** " On November 15, 1979, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a regulation providing that "[u]nless licensed. or authorized *** any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is null and void with respect to any property in which on or since [November 14, 1979,] there existed an interest of Iran." The regufations also made clear that any licenses or authorizations granted could be "amended, modified, or revoked at any time.. " *** On December 19, i979, petitioner Dames & Moore filed suit*** against the Government of Iran, the Ato.mic Energy Organization of Iran, and. a number of Iranian banks. In its complaint, petitioner alleged that its wholly owned subsidiary, Dames & Moore International, S. R. L., was a party to a written contract with the Atomic Energy Organizatfon, and that the subsidiary's entire interest in the contract had been assigned to petitioner. Under the contract, the subsidiary was to conduct site studies for a proposed nuclear power plant in Iran. As provided in the terms of the contract, the Atomic Energy Org~nization terminated the agreement for its own convenience on June 30, Petitioner contended, however, that it wa:s owed $3,436, plus interest for services performed under the contract prior to the date of termination. The District. Court issued orders of attachment *** and the property of certain Iranian banks was then attached to s~cure any. judgment that might be entered against them. On January 20, 1981, the Americans held hostage were released by Iran pursuant to an [Executive] Agreement entered into the day before ***. The Agreement stated that "[i]t is the purpose of [the United States and Iran] *** to terminate all litigation as between the Government of each party and the nationals of the other, and to bring about the settlement and termination of all such claims through binding arbitration." In furtherance of this goal, the

26 124 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS Agreement called for the establishment of an Iran-United States Claims Tribunal which would arbitrate any clajms not settled within six months. Awards of the Claims Tribunal are to be "final and binding" and "enforceable *** in the courts of any nation in accordance with its laws." Under the Agreement, the United States is obligated "to terminate all legal proceedings in United States courts involving claims of United States persons and institutions against Iran and its state enterprises, to nullify all attachments and judgments obtained therein, to prohibit all further litigation based on. such claims, and to bring about the termination of such claims through binding arbitration." In addition, the United States :must "act to bring about the transfer" by July 19, 1981, of all Iranian assets held in this country by American banks. One billion dollars of these assets will be deposited in a security account in the Bank of England, to the account of the Algerian Central Bank, and used to satisfy awards rendered against Iran by the Claims Tribunal. On January 19, 1981, President Carter issued a series of Executive Orders implementing the terms of the agreement. *** On February 24, 1981, President Reagan issued an Executive Ord.er in which he "ratified" the January 19th Executive Orders. Moreover, he "suspended" all "claims which may he presented to the **.* Tribunal" and provided that such claims "shall have no legal effect in any action now pending in any' court of the United States." Th~ suspension of any particular claim terminates if the Claims Tribunal determines that it has no jurisdiction over that. claim; claims are discharged for all purposes when the Claims Tribunal either awards some recovery and that amount is paid, or determines that no recovery is due. *** The parties and the lower courts, confronted with the instant questions, have all agreed that much relevant analysis is contained in Youngstown. Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952). *** Although we have in the past found and do today find JUSTICE JACKSON'S classification of executive actions into three general categories analytically useful, we should beni:lndful of JUSTICE HOLMES' admonition*** that "[t]he great ordinances of the Constitution do not establish and divide fields of black and white." JUSTICE JACKSON himself recognized that his three categories-represented "a somewhat over-simplified grouping," and it is doubtless the case that 1 executive action in any particular instance falls, not ne.atly in one of three pigeonholes, but rather at some point along a spectrum running from explicit congressional authorization to explicit congressional prohibition. This is particularly true as respects cases su~h as the one before us, involving responses to international crises the nature of which Congress can hardly have been expected to anticipat~ in any detail. *** The Government*** principally relied on [this statutory language]: "***. [T]he President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise, investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign I \

27 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 125 country or a national thereof has any interest; by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." The Government contends that the acts of ''nullifying" the attachments and ordering the "transfer" of the frozen assets are specifically authorized by the plain language of the above statute. *** Because the President's action in nullifying the attachments and ordering the transfer of the assets was taken pursuant to specific congressional authorization, it is "supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it." Youngstown (JACKSON, J., concurring). Under the circumstances of this case, we cannot say that petitioner has sustained that heavy burden. A contrary ruling would mean that the Federal Government as a whole lacked the power exercised by the President, and that we are not prepared to say. Although we have coneluded that the IEEP A constitutes specific congressional authorization to the President to nullify the attachments and order the transfer of Iranian assets, there remains the question of the President's authority to suspend claims pending in American courts. Such claims have, of course, an existence apart from the. attachments which accompanied them. In terminating these claims through Executive Order No the President purported to act under authority of both the IEEP A and 22 U.S.C. 1732, the so-called "Hostage Act."*** [We.conclude] that neither the IEEPA nor the Hostage Act constitutes specific authorization of the President's action suspending claims[.] [H]owever, [this] is not to say that these statutory provisions are entirely irrelevant to the question of the validity of the President's action. We think both statutes highly relevant in the looser sense of indicating congressional acceptance of a broad scope for executive action in circumstances such as those presented in this case. *** [T]he IEEP A delegates broad authority to the President to act in times of national emergency with respect to property of a foreign country. The Hostage Act similarly indicates congressional willingness that the President haye broad discretion when responding to the hostile acts of foreign sovereigns.. *** [W]e cannot ignore the general tenor of Congress' legislation in this area in trying to determine whether the President is acting alone or at least with the acceptance of Congress. As we have noted, Congress cannot anticipate and legislate with regard to every possible action the President may find it necessary to take or every possible situation in which he might act. Such failure o.f Congress specifically to delegate authority does not, "especially *** in the areas of foreign policy and national security," imply "congressional disapproval" of action taken by the Executive. On the contrary, the enactment of legislation closely related to the question of the President's authority in a particular case which evinces legislative intent to accord the President broad discretion may be considered to "invite" "measures on independent presidential responsibility," Youngstown (JACKSON, J., concurring). At least this is so where there is no contrary indication of legisfative intent and when, as here, there is a history of congressional

28 126 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS acquiescence in conduct of the sor~ engaged in by the President. It is to that history which we now turn. Not infrequently in affairs between nations, outstanding claims by nationals of one country against the goverp.ment of. another country are "sources of friction" between the two sovereigns. To resolve these difficulties, nations have often entered into agreements settling the claims of their respective nationals. *** Crucial to our decision today is the conclusion that Congress has implicitly approved the practice of claim settlement by executive agreement. This is best demonstrated by Congress' enactment of the International Claims Settlement Act of 1949[.] *** Over the years Congress has frequently amended the International Claims Settlement Act to provide for particular problems arising out of settlement agreements, thus demonstrating Congress' continuing acceptance of the President's claim settlement authority.*** In light of all of -the foregoing-the inferences to be drawn from. the character of the legislation Congress has enacted in the area, such as the IEEP A and the Hostage Act, and from the history of acquiescence in executive claims settlement-we conclude that the President was authorized to suspend pending claims. As justice FRANKFURTER pointed out in Youngstown, 343 U;S., at , "a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge. of the Congress and never before questioned *** may be treated as a gloss on 'Executive Power' vested in the Pres_ident by s 1 of Art. II." Past practice does not, by itself, create power, but "long-continued practice, known to and acquiesced in by Congress, would raise a presumption that the [action] had.been [taken] in pursuance of its consent. *** " Such.practice. is present here and such a presumption is. also appropriate. In light of the fact that Congress may be considered to have consented to the President's action in suspending claims, we cannot say that action exceeded the President's powers. Our conclusion is buttressed by the fact that the means chosen by the President to settle the claims of American nationals provided an alternative forum, the Claims Tribunal, which is capable of providing meaningful relief. *** Just as importantly, Congress has not disapproved of the action taken here. Though Congress has held hearings on the Iranian Agreement itself, Congress has not enacted legislation, or even passed a resolution, indicating its displeasure with the Agreement. Quite the contrary, the relevant Senate Committee has stated that the establishment of the Tribunal is "of vital importance to the United States. II We are thus clearly not confronted with a situation in which Congress has in some way resisted the exercise of Presidential authority. Finally, we re-emphasize the narrowness of our decision. We do not decide that the President possesses plenary power to settle claims, even as against foreign governmental entities. *** But where, as here, the settlement of claims has been determined to be a necessary incident to the resolution of a major foreign policy dispute between our country and another, and where, as here, we can conclude that Congress acquiesced in the President's action,.

29 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 127 we are not prepared to say that the President lacks the power to settle such claims.*** Notes 1. Political Necessity. The Court's decision has been criticized as pure politics (a "political decision politically made") and for its shoddy methodology ("crisis atmosphere *** Court should have demanded more specific legislative approval for the president's far-reaching measures"). Do you agree? 2. Comparisons. (a) Does Dames & Moore reject JUSTICE BLACK's methodology in Youngstown? Is there anything in the Constitution's text that gives the President inherent foreign affairs (but not domestic affairs) powers? (b) Do you agree that Dames & Moore, "[By] finding legislative 'approval' wheri Congress had given none, *** inverted the Steel Seizure holdingwhich construed statutory nonapproval of the president's act to mean legislative disapproval-[and] condoned legislative inactivity at a time that demanded interbranch dialogue and bipartisan consensus"? Harold Koh, THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONSTITUTION: SHARING POWER AFTER THE IRAN CONTRA AFFAIR, (1990).. (c) Why did the Court characterize President Truman's seizure of the steel mills as "domestic" and President Carter's Executive Agreement establishing the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal as "foreign affairs"? Is the line between the two capable of principled judicial delineation? (d) How did President Carter manage to avoid going to the Senate for its "Advice and Consent" under Article II, 2, cl. 2 concerning the Claims Tribunal Agreement? MEDELLIN v. TEXAS 552 U.S. 491 (2008). CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), ***established pursuant to the United Nations Charter to adjudicate disputes between member states *** [in the Avena decision] held that, based on violations of the Vienna Convention, 51. named Mexican nationals. were entitled to review and reconsideration of their state-court convictions and sentences in the United States. This was so regardless of any ***failure to comply with generally applicable state rules governing challenges. to criminal convictions. In Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331 (2006) *** we held that, contr.ary to the ICJ's determination, the Vienna Convention did not preclude the application of state default rules. After [the ICJ] decision, President George W. Bush determined *** that the- United States would "discharge its international obligations" *** ''by having State courts give effect to the decision." *** Relying. on the ICJ's decision and the President's Memorandum, Medellin filed an application for a writ of habe~s corpus in. state court. *** We granted certiorari to decide two questions. First, is the ICJ's judgment*** directly enforceable as domestic law in a state court in the

30 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 131 inherent power to bring a lawsuit "to carry out treaty obligations." But it has reserved judgment as to "the scope of the President's power to preempt state law pursuant to authority delegated by... a ratified treaty" -a fact that helps to explain the majority's inability to find support in precedent for its own conclusions. Given the Court's comparative lack of expertise in foreign affairs; given the importance of the Nation's foreign relations; given the difficulty of finding the proper constitutional balance among state and federal, executive and legislative, powers in such matters; and given the likely future importance of this Court's efforts to do so, I would very much hesitate before concluding that the Constitution implicitly sets forth broad prohibitions (or permissions) in this area.*** The majority's two holdings*** unnecessarily complicate the President's foreign affairs task *** The holdings also encumber Congress with a task (postratification legislation) that, in respect to many decisions of international tribunals, it may not want and which it may find difficult to execu:te. *** These institutional considerations make it difficult to reconcile the majority's holdings with the workable Constitution that the Founders envisaged. *** Notes 1. Presidential Power and Justiciability. Judicial intervention to prevent the President from enforcing the treaty may arguably lead to "potentiality of embarrassment for multifarious announcements by various departments on one question." Does this make it a political question under Baker v. Carr? 2. Federalism and International Obligations. One reason the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation was to allow the federal government supremacy in negotiating and enforcing treaty obligations with other nations. Does it make sense to allow individual states to take actions inconsistent with international obligations? What other precept of the Constitution do the Justices rely on to uphold Texas' right to try these defendants? ZIVOTOFSKYv.KERRY 135 S. Ct (2015) JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. ***Jerusalem's political standing has long been, and remains, one of the most sensitive issues in American foreign policy. *** [I]n co:r.itrast to a consistent policy of formal recognition of Israel, neither President Truman nor any later United States President has issued an official statement or declaration acknowledging ~my country's sovereignty oyer Jerusalem. Instead, the Executjve Branch has maintained that "'the status of Jerusalem should be decided not unilaterally but in consultation with all concerned."' *** The President's position on Jerusalem is reflected in State Department policy regarding passports and consular reports of birth abroad. Understanding that passports will be construed as reflections of American policy, the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual instructs its employees, in general, to record the place of birth on a passport as the "country [having] present. sovereignty over the actual area of birth." ***

31 132 III. THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATIONAL POWERS Because the United States does not recognize any country as having sovereignty over Jerusalem, the FAM instructs employees to record the place of birth for citizens born there as "Jerusalem." In 2002, Congress passed *** the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. Section 214 of the Act is titled ''United States Policy with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel" The subsection that lies at the heart of this case, 214(d), addresses passports. That subsection seeks to override the FAM by allowing citizens born in Jerusalem to list their place of birth as "Israel." When he signed the Act into law, President George W. Bush issued a statement declaring his position that 214 would, "if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the Nation in international affairs~ and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states." *** In December 2002, Zivotofsky's mother visited the American Embassy in Tel Aviv to request both a passport and a consular report.of birth abroad for her son. *** She asked that his place of birth be listed as '"Jerusalem, Israel."' *** The Embassy clerks explained that, pursuant to State Department policy, the passport would list only "Jerusalem." *** Zivotofsky's parents -*** brought suit on his behalf. *** [The lower courts] dismissed his case, reasoning that it presented a nonjusticiable political question*** This Court *** vacated the judgment, [held the question is not reserved for the political branches,] and remanded the case. *** On remand the Court -of Appeals held the statute unconstitutional. *** In considering claims of Presidential power this Court refers to. Justice Jackson's familiar tripartite framework from Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (concurring opinion). *** [W]hen "the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress... he can rely only upon his own constitutional. powers ~inus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter.". *** To succeed in this third category, the President's asserted power must be both "exclusive" and "conclusive" on the issue. *** [T]he Secretary contends that 214(d) infringes on the President's exclusive recognition power by "requiring the President to contradict his recognition position regarding Jerusalem in official communications with foreign sovereigris." *** In so doing the Secretary acknowledges the President's power is "at its lowest ebb." Youngstown. *** To determine whether the President possesses the exclusive power of recognition the Court examines the Constitution's te~t and structure, as well as precedent and history bearing on the question. Recognition is a "formal acknowledgement" that a particular "entity possesses the qualifications fo:r: statehood". or "that a particular regime is the effective government of a state." *** Recognition is,often effected. by an express "written or oral declaration" *** It may also be implied- for example, by concluding a bilateral treaty or by sending or receiving diplomatic agents. *** Legal Qonsequences follow formal recognition. *** Recognition at international law is a precondition of regular diplomatic. r~lations. *** Recognition is thus "useful, even necessary," to the existence of a state.

32 B. EXECUTIVE POWERS. PRIVILEGES. & IMMUNITY 133 Despite the importance of the recognition power in foreign relations, the Constitution does not use the term "recognition," either in Article II or elsewhere. The Secretary asserts that the President exercises the recogriition power based on the Reception Clause, which directs that the President "shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers." Art. II, 3. As Zivotofsky notes, the Reception Clause received little attention at the Constitutional Convention. *** At the time of the founding, however, prominent international scholars suggested that receiving an ambassador was tantamount to recognizing the sovereignty of the sending state. *** It is a logical and proper inference, then, that a Clause directing the President alone to receive ambassadors would be understood to.. acknowledge his power to recognize other nations. This in fact occurred early in the Nation's history when President Washington recognized the French Revolutionary Government by receiving its ambassador. *** The inference that the President exercises the recognition power is further supported by his additional Article II powers. It is for the President, ''by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate," to "make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." Art. II, 2, cl. 2. In addition, "he shall nominate, and by and with the Advi~e and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors" as well as "other public Ministers and Consuls." As a matter of constitutional structure, these additional powers give the President control over recognition decisions. *** Congress, by contrast, has no constitutional power that would enable it to initiate diplomatic relations with a foreign nation. *** The text and structure of the Constitution grant the President the power to recognize foreign nations and governments. The question then becomes whether that.power is exclusive. The various ways ii+ which the President may unilaterally effect recognition-and the lack of any similar power vested in Congress-suggest that it is. So, too, do functional considerations. *** Recognition is a topic on which the Nation must "'speak... with one voice."' American Ins. Assn. v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 424 (2003). That voice must be the President's. Between the two political branches, only. the Executive has the characteristic of unity at all tim~s. And with unity comes the ability to exercise, to a greater degree, "[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch." The Federalist No. 70. The President is capable, in ways Congress is not, of engaging [in diplomacy] that may lead to a decision on recognition [and] [in taking] unequivocal action necessary to recognize other states at international law. *** These qualities explain why the Framers listed the traditional avenues of recognition *** as among the President's Article II powers. As described in more detail below, the President since the founding has exercised this unilateral power to recognize new states-and the Court has endorsed the practice. *** It remains true, of course, that many decisions affecting foreign relations require congressional action. Congress may "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," [and, among other things,] "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." *** Under basic separation-ofpowers principles, it is for the Congress to enact the laws, including "all Laws