Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha

Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), argued 22 Feb. 1982, reargued 7 Dec. 1982, decided 23 June 1983 by vote of 7 to 2; Burger for the Court, Powell concurring, White in dissent, Rehnquist in dissent. Born in Kenya of Indian parents and holding a British passport, Jagdish Chadha had come to the United States to study in the mid‐1960s. When his student visa expired, neither Great Britain nor Kenya would let him return so Chadha applied for permanent residency in the United States. After a lengthy hearing process his application to stay was approved by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Then, two years later the U.S. House of Representatives voted to “veto” the INS decision and Chadha faced deportation.

The legislative veto was a simple concept, originally “invented” by Congress in the 1930s as a way to retain some control over power delegated to the president to reorganize executive branch agencies. In the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, the legislative veto became especially attractive as a tool for controlling presidential excesses (see Delegation of Powers).

At the same time it became apparent that the legislative veto might be a means for exercising congressional control over administrative regulations. By the mid‐1970s a tidal flood of regulations to implement all the environmental, consumer, and other social legislation that had passed over the previous decade was pouring out of Washington bureaucracies. Legislative vetoes offered members of Congress a way to respond to the complaints of powerful business and industrial interests subject to these regulations. Public interest groups that had fought long and hard to get legislation passed to accomplish their goals were faced with the prospect of losing regulation by regulation. Alan Morrison, chief litigator for consumer activist Ralph Nader, seized the opportunity to strike out at the legislative veto by taking over Chadha's case.

Department of Justice attorneys in both the Carter and Reagan administrations joined the case on behalf of the immigration service arguing with Morrison against the constitutionality of the legislative veto. Congress was forced to intervene to defend the constitutionality of its legislative veto. Chadha's small case had turned into a battle of Titans: Congress versus the president.

Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the Court's opinion. The Constitution provides, Burger pointed out, “a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered procedure” (p. 951) for exercise of the legislative power of the federal government. “Explicit and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution prescribe and define the respective functions of the Congress and of the Executive in the legislative process” (p. 945). Any actions taken by either house of Congress if “they contain matter which is properly to be regarded as legislative in character and effect” must conform with the constitutionally designed legislative process that includes bicameral passage and presentment to the president (p. 952). He then went on to spell out what the Court meant. “Legislative in character and effect” includes any action that has the “purpose and effect of altering the legal rights, duties, and relations of persons outside the legislative branch” (p. 952). Legislative vetoes represent efforts by one or both houses of Congress to subvert the “step‐by‐step, deliberate and deliberative process” (p. 959) for legislation set out in the Constitution and are thus unconstitutional.

In one fell swoop the Court in Chadha effectively overturned more congressional enactments than it had previously over its entire history. In Justice Lewis Powell's opinion the case should have been decided on far narrower grounds based on a balancing of the legislative veto's utility against its potential for intrusion into another branch's rightful domain. When Congress finds that a particular person does not satisfy the statutory criteria for permanent residence in this country, it has assumed, Powell argued, a judicial function, in violation of separation of powers. That, according to Powell, was the only issue raised by this case, and the only issue that should have been decided.

In a vehement dissent, Justice Byron White defended the legislative veto as “an important if not indispensable political invention that allows the president and Congress to resolve major constitutional policy differences, assures the accountability of independent regulatory agencies, and preserves Congress'[s] control over lawmaking” (p. 972). White's opinion attacked the rigidity of the majority's application of the constitutional lawmaking process as “irresponsible” in its failure to recognize the reality of the modern administrative state where much “law” is made outside the presentment clause process by unelected bureaucrats (p. 974).

It remains uncertain whether Chadha foreshadows an intention to apply constitutional requirements strictly to police the struggle of power between the branches. Bowsher v. Synar (1986) gives some evidence that the Court might be leaning in this direction, but two other decisions Morrison v. Olson, the 1988 challenge to the special prosecutor law, and *Mistretta v. U.S., the 1989 challenge to the sentencing commission law, suggests instead a Court retreat from a strict reading of separation of powers requirements. In a slightly different context, in Clinton v. New York (1998) the Court struck down the line‐item‐veto act. Notwithstanding Chadha, Congress has continued to enact laws containing legislative‐veto provisions.

Bibliography

Barbara Hinkson Craig , Chadha: The Story of an Epic Constitutional Struggle (1988).
Louis Fisher , Judicial Misjudgments about the Lawmaking Process: The Legislative Veto Case, Public Administration Review, Special Issue (November 1985): 705–711.

Barbara Craig