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1 1 (June 14, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govegid0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Sresearch Servi e The Political Question Doctrine: The Doctrine in the Modern Era (Part 3) June 14, 2022 This Legal Sidebar is the third in a six-part series that discusses the Supreme Court's political question doctrine, which instructs that federal courts should forbear from resolving questions when doing so would require the judiciary to make policy decisions, exercise discretion beyond its competency, or encroach on powers the Constitution vests in the legislative or executive branches. By limiting the range of cases federal courts can consider, the political question doctrine is intended to maintain the separation of powers and recognize the roles of the legislative and executive branches in interpreting the Constitution. Understanding the political question doctrine may assist Members of Congress in recognizing when actions of Congress or the executive branch would not be subject to judicial review. For additional background on this topic and citations to relevant sources, please see the Constitution of the United States, Analysis and Interpretation. The Supreme Court began to develop its modern application of the political question doctrine in the 1939 case Coleman v Miller. In Coleman, the Court addressed the Kansas legislature's recent approval of the proposed Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution, which had been submitted to the states for ratification 13 years prior. Members of the Kansas legislature who had voted against the amendment petitioned for a writ of mandamus, seeking to revoke the approval. They raised certain procedural challenges to the ratification and argued that the passage of time had rendered Kansas's approval of the amendment invalid. The opinion of the Court, authored by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, affirmed an opinion from the Supreme Court of Kansas denying the plaintiffs' petition. Chief Justice Hughes's opinion explained that the efficacy of ratifications by state legislature ... should be regarded as a political question pertaining to the political departments. The Court further clarified, citing Luther, that it was a question solely for Congress, and not for the courts, whether an amendment had been adopted within a reasonable time. It was against this background that the Court decided Colegrove v Green in 1946. By that time, movement of populations from rural to urban areas had led to severe malapportionment in state legislatures. Throughout the country, state legislative districts were drawn such that voters in rural areas had disproportionate power compared to their urban counterparts. State governments, made up of the representatives of those rural voters, were unwilling to fix this problem. As a result, voters in underrepresented districts turned to the courts and the Constitution for a remedy. In Colegrove, a seven- member Court was presented with a constitutional challenge to an Illinois districting arrangement where Congressional Research Service https://crsreports. congress.gov LSB10758 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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