Burke, Acting Archivist of the United States, et al. v. Barnes et al. (479 U.S. 361)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 14, 1987 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 479 U.S. 361 · 107 S. Ct. 734
- Decided
- January 14, 1987
- Term
- October Term 1986
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill, H. R. 4042, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983), conditioning the continuance of United States military aid to El Salvador upon the President’s semiannual certification of El Salvador’s progress in protecting human rights. The President neither signed the bill nor returned it to the House of Representatives where it had originated, and took the position that because Congress had in the meantime adjourned at the end of its first session the bill had been subjected to a “pocket veto” under Article I, § 7, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution. Respondents-plaintiffs in this action are 33 individual Members of the House of Representatives who filed suit in the District Court challenging the action of the President in seeking to “pocket-veto” the bill in question. The Senate and the Speaker and Bipartisan Leadership Group of the House of Representatives intervened in support of the plaintiffs and are also respondents here. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of petitioners-defendants, Barnes v. Carmen, 582 F. Supp. 163 (DC 1984), but a divided Court of Appeals reversed. Barnes v. Kline, 245 U. S. App. D. C. 1, 759 F. 2d 21 (1984). The majority concluded that respondents had standing to maintain this action, and that the bill had become a law…
Excerpt of a 8,979-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.