Question

For purposes of Questions 28 and 29, assume that it is November 2006. Republicans still control the U.S. Supreme Court (seven Republicans and two Democrats) but a Democrat, Howard Lark, is now president of the United States, and Democrats control the House of Representatives. The Democratic Party also controls the Senate. But in the election of 2006 the party lost several seats, such thatbeginning in January 2007, when the new senators are to be sworn inthe Senate is going to be controlled by Republicans, though by a slim margin (forty-nine Democrats and fifty-one Republicans).
While Terminator's case against the Senate committee was pending in federal court, the Senate decided to take action against him. In December 2006 it voted to exclude him from the Senate and directed the Senate majority leader (a Democrat) to inform the governor of California that the seat was vacant.
The governor, Dreg Mavis (another Democrat), not only was quick to call a new election but also decided to run in itas the Democratic candidate to replace Terminator. As it turned out, and much to the delight of the Democratic Party, Mavis won the election. He was sworn in as a member of the U.S. Senate in January 2007. Livid about this turn of events, Terminator brought another suit against the Senate, claiming that it did not have the power to deny him a seat since he met all the qualifications for office: he was thirty, had been a U.S. citizen for more than nine years, and so on.
Believing that Terminator might have a plausible legal argument, and knowing that the U.S. Supreme Court was controlled by Republicans, Democrats in the Senate decided to take yet another step: they removed the Court's authority to hear cases centering on the power of Congress to refuse to seat members. Both houses quickly passed the legislation, and the president signed it.
This step, however, did not deter Terminator. Not only did he proceed with his challenge to the Senate's authority to exclude him, but he also made an additional claim: Congress cannot take away the Court's jurisdiction to hear this class of case.
Suppose you are a justice on the Supreme Court. Would you decide this case on its merits (that is, would you determine whether Congress could exclude members), or would you dismiss it on the ground that the Court lacked jurisdiction to decide it and/or that the dispute itself is nonjusticiable?

Answer

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