United States v. Munoz-Flores

In United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385 (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court established that challenges under the Origination Clause are fully justiciable. Its holding overruled a prior Fifth Circuit precedent to the contrary: See Texas Assn. of Concerned Taxpayers, Inc. v. United States, 772 F. 2d 163 (5th Cir. 1985), which held that an Origination Clause challenge to the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was a nonjusticiable political question.

The 6-3 Court held as follows:

“

As in Nebeker and Millard, then, the special assessment provision was passed as part of a particular program to provide money for that program -- the Crime Victims Fund. Although any excess was to go to the Treasury, there is no evidence that Congress contemplated the possibility of a substantial excess, nor did such an excess in fact materialize. Any revenue for the general Treasury that § 3013 creates is thus "incidenta[l]" to that provision's primary purpose. This conclusion is reinforced, not undermined, by the Senate Report that respondent claims establishes that § 3013 is a "Bil[l] for raising Revenue." That Report reads: "The purpose of imposing nominal assessment fees is to generate needed income to offset the cost of the [Crime Victims Fund]. Although substantial amounts will not result, these additional amounts will be helpful in financing the program and will constitute new income for the Federal government." S. Rep. No. 98-497, supra, at 13-14 (emphasis added). Respondent's reliance on the emphasized portion of the quoted passage avails him nothing. Read in its entirety, the passage clearly evidences Congress' intent that § 3013 provide funds primarily to support the Crime Victims Fund.

”

United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385, 399-400 (1990).

The Court continued:

“

It nevertheless found that the bill was not a revenue bill, stating that a bill creating a discrete governmental program and providing sources for its financial support is not a revenue bill simply because it creates revenue, a holding that was reaffirmed by Millard. See supra, at 397-398. Thus, the beneficiaries of the bill are not relevant.

”

United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385, 400 (U.S. 1990).

Concurrence by Justice Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a separate concurrence, which was not joined by any other member of the Court, including Justice Kennedy. (Justice Stevens also wrote a concurrence, which Justice O'Connor joined.) Justice Scalia's view was that Congress should have the last word on where a bill originated, but that the Court should have the last word on whether it was revenue-generating.

Justice Scalia harkened back to Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892), which held that federal courts should not inquire into whether an enrolled bill was the bill that Congress passed:

"The signing by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and by the President of the Senate, in open session, of an enrolled bill, is an official attestation by the two houses of such bill as one that has passed Congress. It is a declaration by the two houses, through their presiding officers, to the President, that a bill, thus attested, has received, in due form, the sanction of the legislative branch of the government, and that it is delivered to him in obedience to the constitutional requirement that all bills which pass Congress shall be presented to him. And when a bill, thus attested, receives his approval, and is deposited in the public archives, its authentication as a bill that has passed Congress should be deemed complete and unimpeachable. ... The respect due to coequal and independent departments requires the judicial department to act upon that assurance, and to accept, as having passed Congress, all bills authenticated in the manner stated: leaving the courts to determine, when the question properly arises, whether the act, so authenticated, is in conformity with the Constitution." Id., at 672.

Justice Scalia then concluded that:

This salutary principle is also supported by the uncertainty and instability that would result if every person were "'required to hunt through the journals of a legislature to determine whether a statute, properly certified by the speaker of the house and the president of the senate, and approved by the governor, is a statute or not.'" Id., at 677 (quoting Weeks v. Smith, 81 Me. 538, 547, 18 A. 325, 327 (1889)).

The same principle, if not the very same holding, leads me to conclude that federal courts should not undertake an independent investigation into the origination of the statute at issue here. The enrolled bill which, when signed by the President, became the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 2170, bore the indication "H.J. Res. 648." The designation "H.J. Res." (a standard abbreviation for "House Joint Resolution") attests that the legislation originated in the House. Such an attestation is not explicitly required by the Constitution, but is reasonably necessary to the operation of Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, which requires the President, if he desires to veto a bill, to "return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated." The President can hardly be expected to search the legislative Journals (if they have even been printed by the time his veto must be cast) in order to determine where to direct his veto message. Indeed, it can be said that the attestation is reasonably necessary to the operation of Art. I, § 7, cl. 1 (the Revenue-Origination Clause), itself. The President, after all, is bound not to sign an improperly originated revenue bill by the same oath that binds us not to apply it, so he must have a ready means of knowing whence it came.

The enrolled bill's indication of its House of origin establishes that fact as officially and authoritatively as it establishes the fact that its recited text was adopted by both Houses. With respect to either fact a court's holding, based on its own investigation, that the representation made to the President is incorrect would, as Marshall Field said, manifest a lack of respect due a coordinate branch and produce uncertainty as to the state of the law. I cannot imagine this Court's entertaining a claim that purportedly vetoed legislation took effect because, although the President returned it to the House of origination indicated on the enrolled bill, that was not the real house of origination. It should similarly accept the congressional representation in the present case. We should no more gainsay Congress' official assertion of the origin of a bill than we would gainsay its official assertion that the bill was passed by the requisite quorum, see Art. I, § 5, cl. 1; or any more than Congress or the President would gainsay the official assertion of this Court that a judgment was duly considered and approved by our majority vote. Mutual regard between the coordinate branches, and the interest of certainty, both demand that official representations regarding such matters of internal process be accepted at face value.

This disposition does not place forever beyond our reach the only issue in this area that seems to me appropriate for judicial rather than congressional resolution: what sort of bills constitute "Bills for raising Revenue," Art. I, § 7, cl. 1. Whenever Congress wishes to preserve the possibility of a judicial determination on this point, all it need do is originate the bill that contains the arguably revenue-raising measure in the Senate, indicating such origination on the enrolled bill, as by the caption "S.J. Res." This Court may thereby have the last word on what constitutes a bill for raising revenue, and Congress the last word on where a particular bill has originated -- which seems to me as it should be.

United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. 385, 408-10 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring).