## Facts

- During the Vietnam War, Massachusetts enacted a statute directing its attorney general to seek a judicial determination of the constitutionality of U.S. participation in the Indochina conflict and related conscription of state residents.
- Massachusetts sought to invoke the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction by moving for leave to file a bill of complaint against the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
- The Commonwealth requested declaratory relief that U.S. participation in Indochina was unconstitutional because it allegedly lacked constitutionally adequate congressional authorization, including a declaration of war.
- Massachusetts requested injunctive relief to prevent the Secretary of Defense from increasing troop levels in Indochina.
- Massachusetts also sought an injunction, conditioned on congressional inaction within 90 days after any decree, barring orders directing Massachusetts inhabitants to Indochina for combat or support of combat troops.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court should entertain an original action by a state against a federal executive officer challenging the legality of an ongoing war.
2. Whether Massachusetts had standing, including as parens patriae, to contest federal war-making and conscription orders affecting its residents.
3. Whether the claimed lack of congressional authorization for the war presented a justiciable controversy or a nonjusticiable political question.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court denied Massachusetts’s motion for leave to file the bill of complaint.
- The Court issued no majority opinion explaining the denial and did not reach the merits of the war-powers claims.
- Justice Douglas dissented from the denial; Justices Stewart and Harlan also noted dissents.

## Legal Principles

- The Supreme Court retains discretion in deciding whether to grant leave to file an original bill of complaint, even when a state seeks to invoke original jurisdiction.
- A denial of leave to file in an original action can dispose of the case without a merits determination.
- In dissent, Justice Douglas stated that standing and justiciability were threshold questions and argued Massachusetts’s claims were not so clearly foreclosed as to justify summary denial.
- The dissent treated the alleged absence of sufficient congressional authorization for war as presenting legal questions suitable for judicial review rather than automatically barred by the political question doctrine.
- The dissent addressed limits on state parens patriae standing against the federal government and argued the Commonwealth asserted interests extending beyond generalized protection of citizens from federal action.

## Conclusion

The Court declined to hear Massachusetts’s original action challenging the legality of U.S. military operations in Indochina and related conscription, leaving the war-powers dispute unresolved and reflecting a restrictive approach to state-initiated original actions against federal officials in this context.


Massachusetts v. Laird, 400 U.S. 886 (1970)