Facts
- Congress enacted the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (Gramm–Rudman–Hollings), setting annual deficit targets for fiscal years 1986–1991 and requiring automatic spending cuts if targets were exceeded.
- The Act required the Directors of OMB and CBO to prepare deficit estimates and program-by-program reduction calculations and submit them to the Comptroller General.
- The Comptroller General was to review the submissions, apply independent judgment, and issue a report to the President containing determinations that would control the content of a required sequestration order.
- The President was required to issue a sequestration order implementing the reductions specified by the Comptroller General unless Congress enacted alternative reductions through legislation.
- The Comptroller General was appointed by the President with Senate confirmation but was removable by Congress through a joint resolution for specified causes, in addition to impeachment.
- Members of Congress, a federal employees’ union, and an affected union member challenged the constitutionality of the Act’s reporting and sequestration mechanism.
- A three-judge federal district court held the mechanism unconstitutional on separation-of-powers grounds, and the case came to the Supreme Court on direct review.
Issues
- Whether at least one plaintiff had Article III standing to challenge the Act’s sequestration mechanism.
- Whether assigning binding budget-cutting determinations to the Comptroller General, an officer subject to congressional removal, violates separation of powers by allowing Congress to control execution of the laws.
Decision
- The Court held that an individual whose scheduled cost-of-living benefit increases were suspended suffered a concrete injury sufficient for Article III standing; the Court did not need to resolve standing for other plaintiffs.
- The Court affirmed the judgment invalidating the Act’s primary reporting and sequestration mechanism.
- The Court concluded the Comptroller General is subject to congressional control because Congress retained authority to remove him (other than by impeachment alone).
- The Court held the functions assigned to the Comptroller General under the Act were executive in nature because they required application of law to facts and discretionary judgment and produced determinations that bound the President’s sequestration order.
- Because Congress may not retain removal power over an officer charged with executing the laws (except by impeachment), the Act’s mechanism violated separation of powers.
- The Court left in place the statute’s alternative “fallback” procedure that did not rely on the Comptroller General.
Legal Principles
- Congress may not reserve to itself the power to remove, other than by impeachment, an officer charged with executing the laws.
- An officer’s removal structure is a key indicator of which branch controls the officer for separation-of-powers purposes.
- Duties that require interpreting and applying a statute, making factual and legal judgments, and producing binding consequences for implementation are executive functions.
- Congress may not accomplish indirect control over execution of the laws by placing determinative implementation authority in an officer subject to congressional removal.
Conclusion
The Court held that Gramm–Rudman’s primary automatic-sequestration scheme was unconstitutional because it vested executive implementation authority in the Comptroller General while leaving him subject to congressional removal, thereby permitting congressional control over execution of the laws in violation of separation of powers.