Case brief summary
A law passed by Congress that lets just one house of Congress cancel an executive branch decision must still go through both houses of Congress and be sent to the President, as the Constitution requires for making laws.
Facts
Chadha, a visa holder who stayed in the U.S. after his visa expired, had his deportation suspended by an immigration judge, but the House of Representatives later passed a one house resolution vetoing that suspension and ordering him deported.
Procedural history
After the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals said they could not rule on the constitutional question, a federal appeals court held the one house veto law unconstitutional, and the case came to the Supreme Court.
Issue
Does a law allowing one house of Congress alone to veto an executive decision on deporting an individual violate the constitutional requirement that laws be passed by both houses and presented to the President?
Holding
The one house veto provision is unconstitutional because it is essentially a lawmaking action that was not passed by both houses of Congress and not presented to the President.
Reasoning
The Constitution says any action that changes someone's legal rights must pass both houses of Congress and go to the President. This one-house veto skipped that process.
Opinions
Majority (Burger): A one house veto of an executive decision affecting a person's legal rights must go through full lawmaking steps, meaning passage by both houses of Congress and presentment to the President, so this one house veto law is unconstitutional.
Concurrences (Powell): The one house veto here acted like a court deciding one person's case unfairly without the usual legal protections, so it improperly took over a judicial type function rather than violating the lawmaking process rules.
Dissent (White): The one house veto is a useful and widely used tool that lets Congress check the vast power it delegates to agencies and the executive, and it does not violate the Constitution because final decisions still require agreement of the executive and Congress.
Dissent (Rehnquist): The challenged one house veto provision cannot be separated from the rest of the law, so striking only that part improperly expands the law beyond what Congress actually intended and the whole provision should fail together.