Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia
In 2001, Judicial Watch, a nonprofit organization, filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG), the Vice President, other federal officials, and several private individuals. The NEPDG was a task force charged with developing a national energy policy. Judicial Watch alleged that the NEPDG had failed to comply with the procedural requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires advisory committees to make public all reports, records, or other documents used by the committee. The defendants moved to dismiss. The district court denied the motion and ordered the defendants to comply with the plaintiff’s discovery requests. The government produced some 36,000 pages of documents, but filed a motion for a protective order on behalf of the Vice President, arguing that discovery against the Vice President would violate the separation of powers. Defendants then filed an emergency motion for writ of mandamus in the court of appeals, seeking an order vacating the discovery orders issued by the district court, directing the court to decide the case on the basis of the administrative record, and directing that the Vice President be dismissed as a defendant. The Vice President also filed a notice of appeal from the district court's order denying the motion to dismiss and from the various discovery orders. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed the motion for mandamus, holding that the defendants’ challenges to the district court's legal rulings can be fully considered on appeal following a final judgment in the case, and their claims of harm can be fully cured in the district court. The court also dismissed the Vice President’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
Questions Presented:
1. Whether the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. 1, ยงยง 1 et seq., can be construed, consistent with the Constitution, principles of separation of powers, and this Court's
decisions governing judicial review of Executive Branch actions, to authorize broad discovery of the process by which the Vice President and other senior advisors gathered information to advise the
President on important national policy matters, based solely on an unsupported allegation in a complaint that the advisory group was not constituted as the President expressly directed and the
advisory group itself reported.
2. Whether the court of appeals had mandamus or appellate jurisdiction to review the district court’s unprecedented discovery orders in this litigation.
