Why I Snipe

In my last post, I (briefly) laid out reasons why Congress should intervene in the ongoing litigation regarding the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Professor Tillman has offered a comment to that post, which he has shared by email and on the blog. His comment is set forth in full below, along with my response.

Before getting to that, though, there was one other point which I should have mentioned. As we have discussed, pending before the House Ethics Committee is a case which presents two of the major issues that could be decided by the courts if they reach the merits in the FEC litigation: (1) who is covered by the Clause; and (2) do fair market value transactions with foreign governments constitute “emoluments” within the meaning of the Clause. This provides an additional reason why Congress should insist on its own primacy in deciding questions related to the FEC. Not only would judicial pronouncements on the merits of these questions interfere with Congress’s authority vis a vis the other branches, but also with the authority of the House and Senate to discipline their own members.

Now to Tillman’s comment:

Litigation in general has rules. And the three Foreign Emoluments Clause cases have scheduling orders imposed by the court (in the SDNY, District of DC, and District of Maryland), and/or by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Any amicus brief along the lines you suggest would, in effect, support the President. But the time for filing ab amicus brief in support of the President — in all 3 actions — elapsed some time before your post went live (on October 26, 2017).

It is too late for the House and Senate (or Congress as a whole) to follow your advice. Yes, they could file late, but such a late filing would require justification. What is that justification? Why did you not present your advice in a more timely fashion?

In lieu of a brief, you could take the time to write a full-length paper and post it on SSRN as a prelude to publication in a journal. Or you could snipe from the wings against those who actually attempt to do something consistent with the practical requirements of actual litigation.

It is up to you.

Here is my response.

Why do I snipe (or why didn’t I snipe earlier)? Tillman asks why I “snipe from the wings” rather than writing a full-length article or brief detailing my own views on the pertinent legal issues. But this misapprehends the nature of my concern. I am not urging Congress to act to ensure that the courts have the benefit of my brilliant legal scholarship. I want Congress to recognize that its own institutional interests are at stake and to take action to protect those interests. Sure, I have suggested some legal arguments that Congress may wish to make, but Congress has its own counsel that are more than capable of deciding on and developing those arguments.

To the extent that I have contributed any original thinking on the FEC, it relates solely to the question of whether the president is covered by the Clause. But this is distinct from the question of who should decide whether the president is covered. To be sure, I think it is important that Congress understand not only the (overwhelming, IMHO) legal arguments in favor of the president being covered, but also the radical implications of a contrary decision. For example, it would mean that the president and vice-president could hold seats in Congress, and that an impeached and convicted president (or vice-president) could not be disqualified from holding that office again. But while the substantive outcome of this issue is very important, it is equally if not more important that Congress, not the courts, should be making it.

As for why I did not post my thoughts on this earlier, I am sure the readers are not interested in my personal time management. As it happens, I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had posted earlier (granting, purely for the sake of discussion, that Congress is eagerly awaiting my advice on these things), for reasons I discuss below. But I will certainly endeavor to be quicker on the trigger in the future. Nobody likes a slow sniper.

What is the point of my giving this advice to Congress? This is a question that Tillman did not ask (at least explicitly), but should have. What makes me think that Congress has the slightest interest in what I have to say or would even be aware that I said it? And, as several people have commented to me, what makes me think that Congress even has any interest in vindicating its own institutional interests?

I am under no illusion that “Congress” as a whole reads my blog or that the House and Senate chambers are echoing with the sounds of members excitedly discussing my proposal. I do know that my blog is read by some of the relatively small cadre of folks on the Hill who care about institutional prerogatives and have the capacity and band-width to consider these types of “over the horizon” issues. The most that can be realistically hoped is that my post will trigger some thinking and discussion about this matter.

As a general matter, there reasons to question Congress’s commitment to protecting its own institutional interests. Individual members may care (or at least say they care) about vindicating those interests, but Congress as a whole is certainly far less consistent in protecting its institutional prerogatives than is the executive. These is partly a result of structural incentives inherent in a multi-member, bi-cameral body, but is also partly historically contingent. In my (tentative) opinion, the prediction that Congress would become more assertive in its dealings with the other branches (particularly the executive) in the unique circumstances of the current administration is in fact being borne out, but it is very much a work in progress. So my post may represent a triumph of hope over experience, but I don’t think it is entirely futile.

Is it too late for Congress to act on my advice? So I am generally familiar with the fact that litigation has rules and, while I did not look at the scheduling orders in the three district court cases, I recognized when I wrote my post that it was likely that the deadlines for filing amicus briefs in those cases had well passed. As a purely theoretical matter, Congress might still be able to file amicus briefs in those cases if it wished to do so. There is a statute, for example, giving Senate Legal Counsel greater leniency in filing amicus briefs than the ordinary litigant. See 2 U.S.C. § 288l(a). (I understand there is currently a legislative effort to give the House Counsel some of the same authorities, although I do not know whether this specific provision is one of those being considered).

As a practical matter, however, there was never any realistic chance that Congress was going to file an amicus brief at the district court level. There is simply too much that would need to happen before either house is going to authorize the filing of an amicus brief in these cases (particularly given their politically fraught nature). My hope (and it is no more than that) is that Congress starts the process of developing a legal position so that the House and/or the Senate could appear as amicus before the courts of appeals or the Supreme Court.

Finally, I would note that my proposal was not limited to formal appearance in court. There are a number of things that Congress could do (such as holding hearings) that would advance its institutional interests and make it less likely that the courts will think that Congress has simply abandoned its constitutional responsibilities for implementing the FEC.

So it is definitely not too late for Congress to act. The clock, however, is ticking.



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