Page v. Biden
| Decision Date | 29 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 20-cv-104 (CRC) |
| Parties | JOHN H. PAGE, Plaintiff, v. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, in his official capacity as President of the United States, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff John H. Page, a resident of the District of Columbia, sues the President of the United States to demand representation in the House of Representatives. Alleging that there is already a state—the State of Columbia—that overlaps geographically with the District, Mr. Page seeks an injunction requiring the President to include Columbia's residents in the congressional apportionment calculation following the decennial census. The President moves to dismiss the Complaint.
The Court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction over this case because the injunction Page seeks is beyond the power of the judicial branch to grant. The Complaint therefore must be dismissed.
Every ten years, the federal government must conduct an "actual Enumeration"—i.e., a census—of the United States population. U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3. After the census, seats in the House of Representatives must "be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed." Id. amend. XIV, § 2.
As the Supreme Court recently explained, "Congress has given both the Secretary of Commerce and the President functions to perform in the enumeration and apportionment process." Trump v. New York, 141 S. Ct. 530, 533-34 (2020).
The Secretary must "take a decennial census of population . . . in such form and content as he may determine," 13 U.S.C. § 141(a), and then must report to the President "[t]he tabulation of total population by States" under the census "as required for the apportionment," § 141(b). The President in turn must transmit to Congress a "statement showing the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed, as ascertained" under the census. 46 Stat. 26, 2 U.S.C. § 2a(a). In that statement, the President must apply a mathematical formula called the "method of equal proportions" to the population counts in order to calculate the number of House seats for each State. [Id.]
The District of Columbia has never been treated as a "state" for apportionment purposes and therefore has never received any seats in Congress. See Compl. ¶ 13; Adams v. Clinton, 90 F. Supp. 2d 35, 47 (D.D.C. 2000) ().
Proceeding pro se, Page filed this lawsuit in January 2020 against a single defendant: the President of the United States. Compl. ¶ 13.2 In the Complaint, he concedes that D.C. as such is not a state. Id. ¶ 17. However, he alleges that there is a "State of Columbia," distinct from the District, that is constitutionally entitled to representation in Congress commensurate with its population. Id. ¶¶ 26-27, 37. According to Page, Columbia "joined the Union as part of Maryland in 1788" and was later partitioned from Maryland, thus becoming a separate state. Id. ¶ 3. Page points to the 1801 Act Concerning the District of Columbia ("1801 Organic Act"), which provides that "the laws of the state of Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in force in that part of [D.C.] which was ceded by that state to the United States." 2 Stat. 103, 104-05 (1801).3 He claims that by enacting this law, Congress recognized a new state "with the same sovereign State laws of the State of Maryland as they were then." Compl. ¶ 18. The Complaint seeks "an order of the court requiring the occupier of the Office of President to immediately correct all census returns to show the State of Columbia" and requiring "immediate transmittal of those amended census returns to Congress." Id. ¶¶ 39-40.
The President moved to dismiss the Complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. Page filed an opposition to that motion, the President replied, and Page filed a proposed surreply.4
The Court must dismiss any claim over which it lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Auster v. Ghana Airways Ltd., 514 F.3d 44, 48 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing jurisdiction. Knapp Med. Ctr. v. Hargan, 875 F.3d 1125, 1128 (D.C. Cir. 2017). On a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the Court must "accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences from those allegations in the plaintiff's favor," but need not "assume the truth of legal conclusions" in the complaint. Williams v. Lew, 819 F.3d 466, 472 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court also "may consider materials outside the pleadings in deciding whether to grant a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction." Jerome Stevens Pharms., Inc. v. FDA, 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005).
Ordinarily, "when an action is filed challenging the constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts," the district judge to whom the case is initially assigned should convene a three-judge district court. 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a). However, "[a] three-judge court is not required where the district court itself lacks jurisdiction of the complaint or the complaint is not justiciable in the federal courts." Shapiro v. McManus, 577 U.S. 39, 44-45 (2015) ). Therefore, the three-judge-court statute presents no barrier to this Court considering the President's jurisdictional arguments for dismissal.
The President offers numerous arguments for dismissal. One is that the Court lacks jurisdiction to grant the sole remedy Page seeks—an injunction requiring the President to include the population of "Columbia" in the census figures used to reapportion Congress. Mem. in Support of Mot. to Dismiss 6. The Court agrees and will dismiss the case on this ground without reaching the President's other arguments.
For the Court to have jurisdiction over an action, the plaintiff must have standing under Article III of the Constitution. Grocery Mfrs. Ass'n v. EPA, 693 F.3d 169, 174 (D.C. Cir. 2012). "To establish Article III standing, a party must establish three constitutional minima: (1) that the party has suffered an injury in fact, (2) that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and (3) that it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision." Id. at 174 (internal quotation marks omitted). The redressability element of standing is not satisfied if the relief the plaintiff seeks is "impossible" for the court to grant. Newdow v. Roberts, 603 F.3d 1002, 1010 (D.C. Cir. 2010).
Page's Complaint seeks just one remedy (an injunction) against one defendant (the President). See Compl. ¶¶ 39-40. At the outset, this request necessarily "raise[s] judicial eyebrows" because any "grant of injunctive relief against the President himself is extraordinary." Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 802 (1992) (plurality op.). Courts generally "do not have jurisdiction to enjoin" the President. Newdow, 603 F.3d at 1013; see also Swan v. Clinton, 100 F.3d 973, 978 (D.C. Cir. 1996) ().
The Supreme Court has "left open the question whether the President might be subject to a judicial injunction requiring the performance of a purely 'ministerial' duty." Franklin, 505 U.S. at 802 (plurality op.) ). But that potential opening for injunctive relief against the President is narrow: Johnson, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) at 498 (emphases added). Any presidential duty that "involves judgment, planning, or policy decisions" is "discretionary" and cannot be directly enforced through an injunction. Swan, 100 F.3d at 977 (quoting Beatty v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 860 F.2d 1117, 1127 (D.C. Cir. 1988)); see also Johnson, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) at 499 ().
Assuming without deciding that courts do have authority to enjoin the President to perform purely ministerial acts, it is nevertheless clear that the Court lacks the power to grant the injunction Page seeks. That is so because Page is asking the Court to order the President to perform more than a mere ministerial duty.
The President's role in congressional apportionment has both discretionary and ministerial aspects. Initially, the President has substantial, though not unlimited, "authority to direct the Secretary [of Commerce] in making policy judgments that result in 'the decennial census.'" Franklin, 505 U.S. at 799. For example, after receiving the Secretary's report of state population totals under 13 U.S.C. § 141(b), the President may take issue with certain technical procedures the Secretary used to produce those figures, and therefore may (within constitutional and statutory limits) instruct the Secretary to revise the numbers in the § 141(b) report. SeeFranklin, 505 U.S. at 798. Such presidential supervision of the census is "not merely ceremonial or ministerial." Id. at 800. Eventually, however, the process of determining each state's census population must end, and the President must...
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