474
Opinion of the Court
under the exception recognized in Franklin.6 As this case demonstrates, if every claim alleging that the President exceeded his statutory authority were considered a constitutional claim, the exception identified in Franklin would be broadened beyond recognition. The distinction between claims that an official exceeded his statutory authority, on the one hand, and claims that he acted in violation of the Constitution, on the other, is too well established to permit this sort of evisceration.
So the claim raised here is a statutory one: The President is said to have violated the terms of the 1990 Act by accepting procedurally flawed recommendations. The exception identified in Franklin for review of constitutional claims thus does not apply in this case. We may assume for the sake of argument that some claims that the President has violated a statutory mandate are judicially reviewable outside the framework of the APA. See Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S. 654, 667 (1981). But longstanding authority holds that such review is not available when the statute in question commits the decision to the discretion of the President.
As we stated in Dakota Central Telephone Co. v. South Dakota ex rel. Payne, 250 U. S. 163, 184 (1919), where a claim
"concerns not a want of [Presidential] power, but a mere excess or abuse of discretion in exerting a power given, it is clear that it involves considerations which are beyond the reach of judicial power. This must be since, as this court has often pointed out, the judicial may not invade the legislative or executive departments so as to correct alleged mistakes or wrongs arising from asserted abuse of discretion."
6 As one commentator has observed, in cases in which the President concedes, either implicitly or explicitly, that the only source of his authority is statutory, no "constitutional question whatever" is raised. J. Choper, Judicial Review and the National Political Process 316 (1980). Rather, "the cases concern only issues of statutory interpretation." Ibid.
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