## Facts

- Congress enacted § 43 of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 to address employee dislocation from airline deregulation through an Employee Protection Program (EPP).
- The EPP imposed on covered airlines a statutory “duty to hire” and granted dislocated “protected employees” a “first right of hire” in their occupational specialties.
- The statute authorized the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations to administer the EPP.
- Section 43(f)(3) required submission of final regulations to Congress and provided that a regulation would take effect after 60 legislative days unless either House passed a resolution disapproving it (a one-House legislative veto).
- After the Supreme Court held certain legislative vetoes unconstitutional, airlines sued, contending the veto was invalid and that the entire EPP must also fall because the veto was not severable.
- The district court held the veto unconstitutional and invalidated the entire EPP as nonseverable.
- The D.C. Circuit reversed on severability, leaving the EPP in force without the veto.
- The Supreme Court granted review limited to severability.

## Issues

1. Whether the unconstitutional one-House legislative veto in § 43(f)(3) was severable from the remainder of the EPP.
2. Whether the EPP, without the veto provision, could function in a manner consistent with Congress’s intent such that Congress likely would have enacted the program without the veto.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the D.C. Circuit.
- The Court held that § 43(f)(3)’s legislative veto provision was severable from the remainder of the EPP.
- The EPP remained operative, with the legislative veto excised.
- The Court reasoned that the EPP’s principal obligations (the first-hire right and duty to hire) were set by statute and did not materially depend on regulations subject to congressional disapproval.
- The Court found no clear indication that Congress would have preferred no employee-protection program to a program lacking the veto.

## Legal Principles

- An unconstitutional provision in a federal statute is severable unless it is evident that Congress would not have enacted the valid provisions independently, and the remainder can operate as law.
- The severability inquiry focuses on whether the statute, as severed, will function in a manner consistent with Congress’s intent.
- In assessing severability of a legislative veto, courts consider the veto’s role in the original legislative bargain and the scope and character of the delegated authority that was made subject to the veto.
- Severability is favored absent a clear congressional directive that invalidity of one part should defeat the whole statute.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Airline Deregulation Act’s one-House legislative veto over Labor Department regulations was unconstitutional but separable, leaving Congress’s employee-protection scheme intact because it remained functional and consistent with the statute’s primary aim of protecting dislocated airline workers.


Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678 (1987)