Public Citizen v. Department of Justice

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Public Citizen v. Department of Justice
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued April 17, 1989
Decided June 21, 1989
Full case namePublic Citizen v. United States Department of Justice, et al.
Citations491 U.S. 440 ( more )
109 S. Ct. 2558; 105 L. Ed. 2d 377; 1989 U.S. LEXIS 3119
Case history
Prior United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the American Bar Association committee was “advisory committee” within meaning of Federal Advisory Committee Act, but that application of open meeting and records provisions of that Act to committee would be unconstitutional, Washington Legal Found. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 691 F. Supp. 483 (D.D.C. 1988); probable jurisdiction noted, 488 U.S. 979(1988).
Holding
Interest groups seeking to uphold the Federal Advisory Committee Act had standing to bring suit, and the Act did not apply to Justice Department's solicitation of committee's views on prospective judicial nominees.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
William J. Brennan Jr.  · Byron White
Thurgood Marshall  · Harry Blackmun
John P. Stevens  · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
MajorityBrennan, joined by White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens
ConcurrenceKennedy, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor
Scalia took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Art. II § 1, Federal Advisory Committee Act

Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 (1989), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court interpreted the Federal Advisory Committee Act as well as Article II of the United States Constitution. [1]

Supreme Court of the United States Highest court in the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases that involve a point of federal law, and original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, specifically "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party". The Court holds the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the U.S. Constitution. It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones, but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), is a United States federal law which governs the behavior of federal advisory committees. In particular, it has special emphasis on open meetings, chartering, public involvement, and reporting. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) oversees the process. During fiscal year 2008, GSA reported 917 active committees composed of almost 64,000 members that provided advice and recommendations to 50 federal agencies. Financially, the cost of these committees amounted to $344.3 million in fiscal year 2008.

Contents

Background

The United States Department of Justice regularly seeks advice from the Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association (ABA) regarding potential nominees for judgeships. The ABA Committee's investigations, reports, and votes on potential nominees are kept confidential, although its rating of a particular candidate is made public if he or she is in fact nominated. Appellant Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) filed suit against the Justice Department after the ABA Committee refused WLF's request for the names of potential nominees it was considering and for its reports and minutes of its meetings.

United States Department of Justice U.S. federal executive department in charge of law enforcement

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government, responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice in the United States, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration, and administers several federal law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The department is responsible for investigating instances of financial fraud, representing the United States government in legal matters, and running the federal prison system. The department is also responsible for reviewing the conduct of local law enforcement as directed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.

American Bar Association association of lawyers

The American Bar Association (ABA), founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation of model ethical codes related to the legal profession. As of fiscal year 2017, the ABA had 194,000 dues-paying members, constituting approximatley 14.4% of U.S. attorneys. In 1979, half of all lawyers in the U.S. were members of the ABA. The organization's national headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois; it also maintains a significant branch office in Washington, D.C.

The action was brought under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which, among other things, defines an "advisory committee" as any group "established or utilized" by the President or an agency to give advice on public questions, and requires a covered group to file a charter, afford notice of its meetings, open those meetings to the public, and make its minutes, records, and reports available to the public.

The plaintiffs asked the District Court to declare the Committee an "advisory group" subject to FACA's requirements and to enjoin the Department from utilizing the ABA Committee until it complied with those requirements. The District Court dismissed, holding that the Department's use of the ABA Committee is subject to FACA's strictures, but that “FACA cannot constitutionally be applied to the ABA Committee because to do so would violate the express separation of nomination and consent powers set forth in Article II of the Constitution and because no overriding congressional interest in applying FACA to the ABA Committee has been demonstrated.” [2]

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Current US federal appellate court

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate courts, and covers only one district court: the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It meets at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, near Judiciary Square, Washington, D.C.

Opinion of the Court

Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan held that while a literal reading of FACA would cover the ABA, this literal reading could not have been what Congress intended, and that when such a literal reading would reach an odd result, the Court must look to other Congressional evidence.

Though Justice Brennan agreed that, literally speaking, the Executive "utilized" the ABA, he wrote that "'Utilize' is a woolly verb, its contours left undefined by the statute itself. Read unqualifiedly, it would extend FACA's requirements to any group of two or more persons, or at least any formal organization, from which the President or an Executive agency seeks advice." [3]

Consulting the legislative history, he reasoned that the intent of FACA was to "cure specific ills, above all the wasteful expenditure of public funds for worthless committee meetings and biased proposals; although its reach is extensive, we cannot believe that it was intended to cover every formal and informal consultation between the President or an Executive agency and a group rendering advice." [4] Justice Brennan concluded that "Weighing the deliberately inclusive statutory language against other evidence of congressional intent, it seems to us a close question whether FACA should be construed to apply to the ABA Committee, although on the whole we are fairly confident it should not." [5]

In addition to the legislative history, Justice Brennan relied on the doctrine of Constitutional avoidance to favor an interpretation of FACA that would not reach the ABA.

Kennedy's concurrence

In a separate concurrence, Justice Kennedy criticized Brennan's use of legislative history, saying that "[t]here is a ready starting point, which ought to serve also as a sufficient stopping point, for this kind of analysis: the plain language of the statute." [3] And the Executive branch clearly "utilizes" the ABA, according to the ordinary meaning of the word.

Though agreeing, in principle, with the possibility of using the absurdity doctrine to change the meaning of a statute, Justice Kennedy said that the Court must act with "self-discipline" in invoking it, limiting its application to situations where "the result of applying the plain language would be, in a genuine sense, absurd, i.e., where it is quite impossible that Congress could have intended the result." [6] He raised as an example a medieval law against drawing blood in the street, as applied against a doctor treating a sick man. Justice Kennedy also criticized the majority for citing the nearly one hundred year-old decision in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States , 143 U.S. 457 (1892), utilizing similar reasoning, since in that case the outcome depended on the Court proclaiming the U.S. a "Christian Nation," and holding that Congress could not possibly have intended to restrict immigration of Christian ministers. [7]

Despite this, Justice Kennedy concurred because he found that the application of FACA to the President's consultation of the ABA would violate the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Agreeing with the District Court, he wrote that "the application of FACA would constitute a direct and real interference with the President's exclusive responsibility to nominate federal judges," and that Congress cannot interfere with the President's process for selecting judges. [8]

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References

  1. ↑ Public Citizen v. Dep't of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 (1989). PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from this U.S government document.
  2. ↑ Washington Legal Found. v. U.S. Dep't of Justice, 691F. Supp.483 , 486(D.D.C.1988).
  3. 1 2 Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 469.
  4. ↑ Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 453.
  5. ↑ Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 464.
  6. ↑ Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 470-71.
  7. ↑ Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 474.
  8. ↑ Public Citizen, 491 U.S. at 488.
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