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Goldwater v. Carter

444 U.S. 996 (1979), decided 13 Dec. 1979 by vote of 6 to 3 (certiorari granted, vacated, and remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint); Rehnquist, Burger, Stewart, Powell, Stevens, and Marshall concurring, Brennan, White and Blackmun in dissent. Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of Congress challenged President Jimmy Carter's termination of the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan without consulting or securing the prior approval of the Senate. Article II, section 2, clause 2 of the Constitution states that the president has the power to make treaties, provided that two‐thirds of the Senate concur. However, the Constitution does not address the question of how a treaty may be abrogated.

The Supreme Court summarily reversed a court of appeals decision holding that the president had authority to terminate a treaty without congressional approval. Justice William Rehnquist, in a concurring opinion joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices Potter Stewart and John Paul Stevens, argued that this was a nonjusticiable political question because it involved the “authority of the President in the conduct of our country's foreign relations … specifically a treaty commitment to use military force in the defense of a foreign government if attacked” (pp. 1002–1004). The Court was “asked to settle a dispute between coequal branches of government, each of which has resources available to protect and assert its interests, resources not available to private litigants outside the judicial forum” (p. 1004). Justice Lewis Powell concurred separately, arguing that the issue was not “ripe” for judicial decision since Congress had not yet confronted the president about the treaty (see Ripeness and Immediacy).

In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued that the political question doctrine does not apply when the Court merely examines whether a particular branch has been “constitutionally designated as the repository of political decision‐making power” (p. 1007). This was a constitutional law question, he said, that falls within the competency of the courts. Addressing the merits of the case, Brennan argued that since abrogation of the Taiwan Defense Treaty was related to the president's decision to recognize the government of mainland China, and since the president alone has the power to recognize foreign governments, he had the authority to abrogate the treaty.

See also Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy; Political Questions; Treaties and Treaty Power.

— Joel B. Grossman

 
 
Wikipedia: Goldwater v. Carter
Goldwater v. Carter
Seal_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court.png
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided December 13, 1979
Full case name: Barry Goldwater, et al. v. James Earl Carter, President of the United States, et al.
Citations: 444 U.S. 996; 100 S. Ct. 533; 62 L. Ed. 2d 428; 1979 U.S. LEXIS 4144
Prior history: Judgment for defendants, District Court for the District of Columbia
Holding
The issue at hand, whether President Carter could unilaterally break a defense treaty with the Republic of China without Senate approval, was essentially a political question and could not be reviewed by the court, as Congress had not issued a formal opposition. The case was dismissed.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices: William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens
Case opinions
Concurrence by: Marshall
Concurrence by: Powell
Concurrence by: Rehnquist
Joined by: Burger, Stewart, Stevens
Dissent by: Blackmun (in part)
Joined by: White
Dissent by: Brennan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. II, sct. II

Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979)[1], was a United States Supreme Court case which was the result of a lawsuit filed by Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of the United States Congress challenging the right of President Jimmy Carter to unilaterally nullify the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which the United States had signed with the Republic of China in order to establish relations with the People's Republic of China. Goldwater and his co-filers claimed that the President required Senate approval to take such an action, under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution, and that, by not doing so, President Carter had acted beyond the powers of his office.

The case went before the Supreme Court and was never heard; a majority of six Justices ruled that the case should be dismissed without hearing an oral argument. Justices Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist issued two separate concurring opinions on the case. Rehnquist claimed that the issue concerned how foreign affairs were conducted between Congress and the President, and was essentially political, not judicial; therefore, it was not eligible to be heard by the court. Powell, while agreeing that the case did not merit judicial review, believed that the issue itself, the powers of the President to break treaties without congressional approval, would have been arguable had Congress issued a formal opposition through a resolution to the termination of the treaty (The Senate had drafted such a resolution, but not voted upon it).1 This would have turned the case into a constitutional debate between the executive powers granted to the President against the legislative powers granted to Congress. As the case stood, however, it was simply a dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government, political in nature. Today, the case is considered a textbook example of the political question doctrine in U.S. civil procedure.

Quotes

"Prudential considerations persuade me that a dispute between Congress and the President is not ready for judicial review unless and until each branch has taken action asserting its constitutional authority.... The Judicial Branch should not decide issues affecting the allocation of power between the President and Congress until the political branches reach a constitutional impasse. Otherwise, we would encourage small groups or even individual Members of Congress to seek judicial resolution of issues before the normal political process has the opportunity to resolve the conflict."

- Justice Powell in his opinion

"I am aware of the view that the basic question presented by the petitioners in this case is 'political' and therefore nonjusticiable because it involves the authority of the President in the conduct of our country's foreign relations and the extent to which the Senate or the Congress is authorized to negate the action of the President."

- Justice Rehnquist in his concurring opinion

"If the Congress, by appropriate formal action, had challenged the President’s authority to terminate the treaty with Taiwan, the resulting uncertainty could have serious consequences for our country. In that situation, it would be the duty of this Court to resolve the issue."

- Justice Powell in his opinion

"The issue of decisionmaking authority must be resolved as a matter of constitutional law, not political discretion; accordingly, it falls within the competence of the courts"

- Justice Brennan in his dissenting opinion

Conclusion

While throwing out the case of Goldwater v. Carter, the Supreme Court left the question of the constitutionality of the President Carter's action open. Powell and Rehnquist merely questioned the judicial merit of the case itself; they did not explicitly approve Carter's action.2 Moreover, Powell even stated that this could be a valid constitutional issue.3 Article II, Section II of the Constitution merely states that the President cannot make treaties without a Senate majority two-thirds vote. As it stands now, there is no official ruling on whether the President has the power to break a treaty without the approval of Congress.

External links

  • ^ 444 U.S. 996 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
  • "Goldwater v. Carter." [2]
  • "Goldwater v. Carter." Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia. [3]

Footnotes

  • Note 1: Powell's opinion, Section III, Paragraph 1.
  • Note 2: Powell's opinion, Section I, Paragraph 1.; Rehnquist's opinion, Section I, Paragraph 1.
  • Note 3: Powell's opinion, Section III, Paragraph 1.

 
 

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US Supreme Court. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Copyright © 1992, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Goldwater v. Carter" Read more

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