Youngstown Sheet & Tube

Week 8 — Inherent Presidential Power

Facts

After the Steelworkers Union failed to successfully negotiate contracts with various steel mills, the President issued an order (Executive Order 10340) for the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate those mills. Obeying the Secretary’s orders under protest, the companies brought proceedings against him in the District Court. Their complaints charged that the seizure was not authorized by an act of Congress or by any constitutional provisions.

Issue

Whether the President was acting within his constitutional power when he issued an order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of and operate most of the Nation’s steel mills.

Rule

U.S. Const. Art. II, § 1: “the executive Power shall be vested in a President . . . ”; “the executive Power shall be vested in a President . . . ”; that “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”; and that he “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”

Holding

The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President’s military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Reasoning

  • The order cannot hold for two reasons:
    • Not as President's power as Commander in Chief of Armed Forces:
      • The Government attempts to do so by citing a number of cases upholding broad powers in military commanders engaged in day-to-day fighting in a theater of war.
      • Even though “theater of war” be an expanding concept, we cannot with faithfulness to our constitutional system hold that the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has the ultimate power as such to take possession of private property in order to keep labor disputes from stopping production.
    • Not under the provisions that grant executive power to the President:
      • In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.
      • The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad.
      • And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute.

Judgment

  • Executive Order 10340 is unconstitutional.

Notes

  • The President may not take on a legislative role.
  • The Tripartite Framework:
    • Zone 1: Zone of Apex
      • The President is acting with express or implied authority from Congress.
    • Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
      • The President is acting when Congress has neither granted nor denied the authority to do so; acting where Congress has concurrent authority.
      • The legality of the actions depends on their practical urgency and the constitutional interplay between the branches.
    • Zone 3: Zone of Lowest Ebb
      • The President takes action incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress
      • The President must have conclusive and preclusive constitutional control over the issue at hand for it to be legal.
    • From this case: The President directing the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of private steel mills was held unconstitutional; this action was not rooted in the President’s commander-in-chief role; Congress is the sole lawmaker.