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Raines v. Byrd- Line item veto

t Rehnquist1997. Dismissed, for lack of standing, a challenge to the Line Item VetoAct brought by six members of Congress.

t Majority. No interest in avoiding “institutional” loss of power. SCt held that the “abstract dilution of institutional legislative power” is not sufficient injury to permit standing.

n Members of a political body, such as a legislature, do not have standing to litigate against an action that they say takes away the political power of that body.

n Thus members of Congress who unsuccessfully voted against a bill allowing line-item by the President were held not to have standing to litigate the constitutionality of the resulting statute, where their only claim was that the bill “causes a type of institutional injury (the diminution of legislative power), which necessarily damages all Members of Congress, and both Houses of Congress equally.”

n Rationale. Majority reasoned that P congressmen were not alleging injury to themselves as individuals, merely injury to the position of Member of Congress. And the institutional injury they alleged was “wholly abstract and widely dispersed.” Therefore, the Ps did not have the “concrete and particularized” interest required for standing.

n Votes needed to pass bill. But a different situation would be presented if a Congressperson’s vote were truly cancelled, in the sense of deprived of all of its effect. Thus the Raines Court distinguished a prior case, Coleman v. Miller(1939) in which the Kansas legislature had deadlocked 20-20 on whether to ratify a particular constitutional amendment, and in which the Lieutenant Governor had broken the tie. When the 20 members who voted “no” sued on a claim that the tie meant that the legislature had not in fact ratified the amendment, the SCt found that they had standing. But the Raines Court held that Coleman stands only for the proposition that “legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to defeat (or enact) a specific legislative act have standing to sue if that legislative action goes into effect (or does not go into effect), on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified.” In Raines itself, by contrast, the Ps simply lost by being outvoted, so their votes had not been “completely nullified,” and they thus had no standing.

t Concurrence - Souter. Wants to keep SCt out of what is essentially an inter branch controversy.

t Dissents.

n Stevens. Thought that this law denies every member of Congress his right to vote on the measures that ultimately become law.

n Breyer. Thought that this statute “immediately affects the legislators’ ability to do their jobs.” But he concedes that this is a hard case, because in order to fall within Article III’s judicial power, a dispute must be at least somewhat similar in form to “matters that were the traditional concern of the courts at Westminster.”


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 690


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