240
White, J., concurring in judgment
II
The majority states that the question raised in this case meets two of the criteria for political questions set out in Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186 (1962). It concludes first that there is " 'a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department.' " It also finds that the question cannot be resolved for " 'a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards.' " Ante, at 228.
Of course the issue in the political question doctrine is not whether the constitutional text commits exclusive responsibility for a particular governmental function to one of the political branches. There are numerous instances of this sort of textual commitment, e. g., Art. I, § 8, and it is not thought that disputes implicating these provisions are nonjusticiable. Rather, the issue is whether the Constitution has given one of the political branches final responsibility for interpreting the scope and nature of such a power.
Although Baker directs the Court to search for "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment" of such responsibility, there are few, if any, explicit and unequivocal instances in the Constitution of this sort of textual commitment. Conferral on Congress of the power to "Judge" qualifications of its Members by Art. I, § 5, may, for example, preclude judicial review of whether a prospective member in fact meets those qualifications. See Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 548 (1969). The courts therefore are usually left to infer the presence of a political question from the text and structure of the Constitution. In drawing the inference that the Constitution has committed final interpretive authority to one of the political branches, courts are sometimes aided by textual evidence that the Judiciary was not meant to exercise judicial review—a coordinate inquiry expressed in Baker's "lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards" criterion. See, e. g., Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 452-454 (1939), where the Court refused to determine
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