Cite as: 523 U. S. 44 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
ney, 341 U. S., at 377 (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, it simply is "not consonant with our scheme of government for a court to inquire into the motives of legislators." Ibid. We therefore held that the defendant in Tenney had acted in a legislative capacity even though he allegedly singled out the plaintiff for investigation in order "to intimidate and silence plaintiff and deter and prevent him from effectively exercising his constitutional rights." Id., at 371 (internal quotation marks omitted).
This leaves us with the question whether, stripped of all considerations of intent and motive, petitioners' actions were legislative. We have little trouble concluding that they were. Most evidently, petitioner Roderick's acts of voting for an ordinance were, in form, quintessentially legislative. Petitioner Bogan's introduction of a budget and signing into law an ordinance also were formally legislative, even though he was an executive official. We have recognized that officials outside the legislative branch are entitled to legislative immunity when they perform legislative functions, see Supreme Court of Va. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 446 U. S. 719, 731-734 (1980); Bogan's actions were legislative because they were integral steps in the legislative process. Cf. Edwards v. United States, 286 U. S. 482, 490 (1932) (noting "the legislative character of the President's function in approving or disapproving bills"); Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, 372-373 (1932) (recognizing that a Governor's signing or vetoing of a bill constitutes part of the legislative process).
Respondent, however, asks us to look beyond petitioners' formal actions to consider whether the ordinance was legislative in substance. We need not determine whether the formally legislative character of petitioners' actions is alone sufficient to entitle petitioners to legislative immunity, because here the ordinance, in substance, bore all the hallmarks of traditional legislation. The ordinance reflected a discretionary, policymaking decision implicating the budgetary pri-
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