Master The Supreme Court struck down the one-House legislative veto as violating bicameralism and presentment requirements of Article I. with this comprehensive case brief.
INS v. Chadha is the canonical modern separation-of-powers decision on the legislative veto. Decided in 1983, it invalidated a common congressional oversight device that allowed one chamber of Congress (or, in many statutes, both chambers without presentment) to nullify or alter executive branch actions by simple resolution. By requiring that any action with the force and effect of law pass both houses and be presented to the President, the Court restored the primacy of Article I’s text and structure in policing the boundaries between the branches.
The case is significant not only because it struck down Section 244(c)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), but because its reasoning swept broadly across the federal code, destabilizing hundreds of statutory provisions that used legislative vetoes to control agency discretion. Chadha recentered constitutional analysis on bicameralism and presentment, emphasized that convenience cannot trump the Constitution’s structural safeguards, and clarified that one-house actions are permissible only when the Constitution expressly authorizes them.
INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Jagdish Rai Chadha, born in Kenya to Indian parents and holding the status of a British subject, entered the United States on a student visa. After overstaying his visa, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) initiated deportation proceedings. Under Section 244(a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney General (through the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals) could suspend deportation and grant Chadha lawful status if deportation would result in extreme hardship and if statutory criteria were met. An immigration judge found that Chadha satisfied the criteria and ordered suspension of deportation. Pursuant to Section 244(c)(2), the Attorney General was required to report suspensions to Congress, where either House could, by simple resolution within a specified period, disapprove the suspension. The House of Representatives passed a one-House resolution disapproving Chadha’s suspension, without action by the Senate and without presentment to the President. The INS, regarding itself bound by the resolution, reopened and ordered Chadha deported. Chadha sought judicial review, arguing that the one-House legislative veto provision was unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit agreed and set aside the deportation order. The government (INS) and the House defended the statute’s constitutionality in the Supreme Court.
Does a one-House legislative veto provision that permits either chamber of Congress to invalidate an executive branch determination without bicameral passage and presentment to the President violate the Constitution’s requirements of bicameralism and presentment?
Under Article I, Sections 1 and 7, any congressional action that has the purpose and effect of altering the legal rights, duties, or relations of persons outside the legislative branch is legislative in character and must comply with bicameralism and presentment—passage by both the House and the Senate and presentment to the President—unless the Constitution expressly provides an exception. One-house actions are constitutionally permitted only in limited, textually specified contexts (e.g., House impeachment, Senate trial of impeachments, Senate advice and consent on appointments and treaties). A one-House legislative veto is therefore unconstitutional.
Yes. Section 244(c)(2) of the INA, authorizing a one-House legislative veto of the Attorney General’s suspension of deportation, violates the Constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements and is invalid. The House’s resolution disapproving Chadha’s suspension was unconstitutional and without legal force. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit was affirmed.
The Court, per Chief Justice Burger, began with justiciability and standing, concluding that the dispute was ripe and that Chadha had standing because the House resolution altered his legal status and subjected him to deportation. On the merits, the Court grounded its analysis in the text of Article I. Section 1 vests all legislative powers in a Congress consisting of a Senate and House. Section 7 prescribes the exclusive lawmaking process: bicameral passage and presentment, subject only to specified exceptions. The House’s resolution had the purpose and effect of changing legal rights and obligations outside Congress—nullifying the Attorney General’s decision and reinstating Chadha’s deportability—thus it was legislative in character and had to comply with Article I’s procedures. The government’s argument that the veto was merely a condition on a delegation of authority, or a procedural check internal to the legislative process, was rejected. The Court emphasized function over form: because the resolution altered legal consequences for individuals and the executive, it could not be insulated from Article I’s requirements. Nor could the veto be justified by claims of governmental efficiency or the long-standing, widespread use of legislative vetoes across the code. The Constitution’s structural protections are meant to frustrate unilateral action and require the accountability that bicameralism and presentment ensure. The Court also rejected the suggestion that the veto fit within any of the Constitution’s express exceptions to bicameralism and presentment; only specific functions—House impeachment, Senate trials, Senate confirmations, and treaty ratification—allow one-house or non-presented actions, and the legislative veto is not among them. The Court addressed separation-of-powers concerns, noting that the veto aggrandized legislative power at the expense of the executive by permitting Congress to execute and revise the law without presidential participation and without the Senate. While recognizing the veto’s practical utility for congressional oversight, the Court held that convenience cannot justify constitutional shortcuts. Finally, applying severability principles, the Court determined that the invalid veto provision was severable from the INA’s suspension-of-deportation scheme; absent the veto, the Attorney General’s suspension decision stood, and Chadha could not be deported on that basis. Justice Powell concurred, emphasizing that the House’s action resembled an adjudication targeting a named individual without judicial safeguards, raising due process and separation-of-powers concerns. Justice White dissented, arguing that the legislative veto was a necessary and proper, pragmatic device to control broad delegations to the executive; he warned that invalidating vetoes would either force Congress to micromanage or lead to unchecked administrative power. Justice Rehnquist dissented on severability, contending that the veto was integral to Congress’s delegation and that the suspension authority should fall with it.
Chadha is a landmark separation-of-powers case that effectively invalidated hundreds of legislative veto provisions used to oversee administrative agencies. It entrenches the requirements of bicameralism and presentment as nonnegotiable checkpoints for any congressional action with legal effect outside the legislature. After Chadha, Congress shifted to alternative oversight mechanisms—such as reporting-and-waiting provisions, enhanced oversight hearings, appropriations riders, and, later, the Congressional Review Act’s joint-resolution model—to maintain control over agency action without bypassing presentment. For law students, Chadha is central to understanding how constitutional structure polices interbranch power, how courts assess the “legislative character” of actions by their purpose and effect, and how severability preserves statutory schemes when discrete mechanisms are unconstitutional.
Yes for unilateral or bicameral disapproval mechanisms that bypass presentment. The Court’s reasoning applies to any congressional veto that changes legal rights or duties without going through bicameral passage and presentment. One-house vetoes, two-house concurrent-resolution vetoes, and committee vetoes are unconstitutional. However, Congress can still structure oversight using joint resolutions that pass both chambers and are presented to the President (or overcome a veto), as later codified in statutes like the Congressional Review Act.
Because it had the purpose and effect of altering legal rights and obligations outside the legislative branch—specifically, it nullified the Attorney General’s suspension and reinstated Chadha’s deportability. Under the Court’s function-over-form approach, when congressional action changes the legal landscape for individuals or the executive, it is legislative and must comply with Article I’s bicameralism and presentment. The label “resolution” or the claim that it is part of a delegation does not change its constitutional character.
Yes. The Constitution expressly authorizes certain one-house or non-presented actions, such as the House’s power to impeach, the Senate’s power to try impeachments, and the Senate’s advice-and-consent role for appointments and treaties. Outside those narrowly enumerated exceptions, congressional actions with legal effect must satisfy bicameralism and presentment.
The Court held the one-House veto provision was severable from the remainder of Section 244. Congress had provided a general severability clause, and the suspension authority was fully operable without the veto. As a result, the Attorney General’s decision to suspend Chadha’s deportation remained valid, and the House’s disapproval resolution had no legal effect.
Indirectly. The majority acknowledged that legislative vetoes were adopted to control agency discretion amid broad delegations, but it held that structural convenience cannot override constitutional requirements. Justice White’s dissent stressed the practical need for the veto to rein in agencies, warning that the decision would either expand administrative power or force Congress to legislate in greater detail. The majority responded that the Constitution prescribes the remedy—lawmaking through bicameralism and presentment—not legislative short-cuts.
Congress increasingly relied on tools consistent with Article I, including report-and-wait provisions that delay agency action, enhanced oversight and appropriations riders, and the use of joint resolutions subject to presidential presentment. The post-Chadha landscape prompted creation of mechanisms like the Congressional Review Act, which preserves presentment while enabling expedited legislative responses to agency rules.
INS v. Chadha reasserts the constitutional architecture of lawmaking against pragmatic devices designed to simplify oversight. By condemning the legislative veto, the Court required Congress to operate within Article I’s pathways or within the Constitution’s carefully enumerated exceptions, reinforcing accountability through bicameral approval and presidential participation.
For students of constitutional law, Chadha is a masterclass in structural interpretation: it illustrates how text, history, and functional concerns converge to police interbranch boundaries. It also demonstrates that separation-of-powers principles have concrete consequences for individual rights, as seen in Chadha’s own relief from deportation when an unconstitutional device was removed from the statutory scheme.