The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case in which it will decide whether individual members of Congress have standing to sue federal agencies to obtain information, in this case involving former president Donald Trump.
The case is Carnahan v. Maloney, the facts of which go back to 2017, when Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, including former Representative Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.), requested information from the General Services Administration (GSA) about its management of the Old Post Office, a D.C. landmark leased to Trump so he could operate the Trump Hotel. The GSA declined on several occasions and explained the information was privileged.
This led the Democratic members of that committee, who were in the minority, to sue based on a rarely-used law known as “the seven-member rule,” or Section 2954. The law appears to permit any seven members of that committee to demand records related to the committee’s jurisdiction from anywhere in the federal government. The statute gives the same power to five members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.
If the Supreme Court affirms standing, minority lawmakers could gain broader powers against the executive branch. Recognizing this, the Biden administration sided with its predecessor in opposing the effort of the Democratic lawmakers. It is the Biden administration’s policy — like that of the Trump administration — to only respond to oversight requests from the majority on a congressional committee, not from individual members.
The Biden administration petitioned the high court after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the members had standing to sue.
“Congress may provide accountability only through the exercise of its legislative powers. It cannot dragoon the federal courts into its investigations,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote.
In a dissent to a failed petition to rehear the case by the full D.C. Circuit, Judge Neomi Rao argued against the effort.
“In concluding that individual members of Congress have standing to sue when an executive agency rejects their requests for information, the panel majority clears the way for the federal courts to referee ordinary informational disputes between the political branches. The panel’s rationale has no logical stopping point and would permit standing to even a single member of Congress suing the Executive,” Rao wrote.
“The panel’s recognition of a personal injury to legislative power clashes with the fundamental constitutional principles that limit congressional standing, upends the balance of power between Congress and the Executive, and drags courts into disputes wholly foreign to the Article III ‘judicial Power,'” continued Rao.
House Republicans tried to undermine Section 2954 earlier this year, adopting a rule change that requires the chair of the Oversight Committee to be one of the seven members required to approve such a request. It is unclear if the rule change supersedes the existing seven-member rule, which was passed into law.
Trump opened his D.C. hotel during his successful presidential campaign. Democrats suggested the terms of the lease may have violated federal law. The former president has since sold the hotel, and it now operates as the Waldorf Astoria.
Also on Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to review a lower court decision that struck down a congressional district in South Carolina as an illegal racial gerrymander.