WLF Asks Supreme Court to Keep Congress’s Promise of Immediate Judicial Review of Constitutional Claims

“Mr. Johnson has a constitutional claim and is entitled to his day in federal district court. Not years later after an exhausting tour through the federal bureaucracy, but right now.”
—Zac Morgan, WLF Senior Litigation Counsel

Click here to read WLF’s brief.

(Washington, DC)—Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that Congress must speak clearly before stripping federal district courts of jurisdiction to hear constitutional questions.

Floyd Johnson contends that a current federal law about veterans’ benefits distribution is unconstitutional. Under the modern version of a 150-year-old statute, Congress has given the federal district courts power to hear all constitutional questions arising from federal law. Not on delay, but immediately. Yet despite that default rule, Johnson has been told that he must first present that claim to an exhausting list of bureaucrats—none of whom are empowered to void the law for good. And he must do this not because Congress clearly set aside the usual rule in another statute—but because, according to the Eleventh Circuit, it implicitly did so.

WLF’s brief explains why that’s wrong. Basic rules of statutory interpretation counsel that courts shouldn’t assume Congress would lightly set aside a 150-year promise of immediate federal judicial review. Because Congress didn’t clearly change the rules, the default rule applies. That standard clears the way for judicial review of Mr. Johnson’s case. And it doesn’t help only him. Jurisdictional certainty is particularly useful for business interests, who must ruthlessly make cost/benefit calculations about whether litigation is worth it—and might not bring meritorious constitutional challenges if they must first waste years going through the motions of an arcane bureaucratic process or fighting with the federal government over where to file.