Cummings v. Murphy

321 F. Supp. 3d 92
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedAugust 14, 2018
DocketCase No. 17-cv-02308 (APM)
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 321 F. Supp. 3d 92 (Cummings v. Murphy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cummings v. Murphy, 321 F. Supp. 3d 92 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

Opinion

Amit P. Mehta, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

This case concerns an agency's refusal to produce records in response to what is referred to in political parlance as a "Seven Member Rule" request. That moniker derives from the "Seven Member Rule," which is embodied in 5 U.S.C. § 2954. Adopted by Congress in 1928, section 2954 provides in pertinent part that, upon request of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives ("the House Oversight Committee"), "or of any seven members thereof ," an Executive agency "shall submit any information requested of it relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the committee." 5 U.S.C. § 2954 (emphasis added). The Seven Member Rule thus provides a statutory mechanism for members of the minority party to obtain records from the Executive Branch to support the Committee's oversight function.

Plaintiffs here are seventeen minority members of the House Oversight Committee who have made several Seven Member Rule requests of the General Services Administration ("GSA") for information relating to GSA's management of its lease agreement with Trump Old Post Office LLC.1 That lease agreement granted *96Trump Old Post Office LLC--an entity owned by President Donald J. Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump, and his sons, Donald, Jr., and Eric Trump--the rights to develop and convert the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., into the Trump International Hotel. In early January 2017, GSA produced records that were responsive to Plaintiffs' initial requests. Since President Trump's inauguration, however, GSA has disclosed no additional information about the Old Post Office lease agreement in direct response to Plaintiffs' subsequent Seven Member Rule requests. Plaintiffs brought this action against GSA's Administrator to compel compliance with their Seven Member Rule requests.

Before the court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss and Plaintiffs' Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. For the reasons stated below, the court concludes that these Plaintiffs, as individual members of the House Oversight Committee, lack standing to bring this action. Thus, the court grants Defendant's Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and denies Plaintiffs' Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Statutory Background

Congress enacted the Seven Member Rule in 1928 as part of an Act containing only three sections, the first two of which are pertinent here. See Act of May 29, 1928, ch. 901, 45 Stat. 986. Section 1 of the Act repealed 128 mandatory reporting statutes that obligated federal agencies to submit periodic reports to Congress. See id. § 1, 45 Stat. at 986-96. Congress repealed these requirements, because it deemed the reports to no longer "serve [a] useful purpose," as the reports proved to be labor intensive but ultimately "useless" in their utility. See H.R. Rep. No. 70-1757, at 3, 6 (1928); see also id. at 6 ("The departmental labor in preparation is a waste of time and the files of Congress are cluttered up with a mass of useless reports."). Section 2 of the Act replaced this mandatory, reports-based model of disclosure with a request-driven process. See Act of May 29, 1928, ch. 901, § 2, 45 Stat. 986, 996. Section 2 is now codified at 5 U.S.C. § 2954, which provides in relevant part: "An Executive agency, on request of the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives [today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform], or of any seven members thereof ... shall submit any information requested of it relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the committee." 5 U.S.C. § 2954.2 Thus, instead of requiring mandatory reporting by Executive agencies, section 2 provided a mechanism by which the House Oversight Committee and its members could obtain information by making a specific demand for information.

Section 2954 plainly gives members of the House Oversight Committee the right to request information from Executive agencies, so long as the information sought *97falls within the Committee's jurisdiction and at least seven members join in the request. That much is clear. Section 2954's legislative history, however, reveals some ambiguity as to the statute's reach. See generally Louis Fisher, Congressional Access to Information: Using Legislative Will and Leverage , 52 Duke L.J. 323, 362-64 (2002). Part of the legislative history suggests that Congress intended to limit the scope of a request made under section 2954 to information contained in the abolished regular reports that Executive agencies previously had sent to Congress. See H.R. Rep. No. 70-1757, at 6 ("To save any question as to the right of the House of Representatives to have furnished any of the information contained in the reports proposed to be abolished, a provision has been added to the bill requiring such information...."). But other portions of the legislative history suggest no such limitation. For instance, both the House and Senate Reports provide that, "[i]f any information is desired by any Member or committee upon a particular subject that information can be better secured by a request made by an individual Member or committee, so framed as to bring out the special information desired." Id. (emphasis added); S. Rep. No. 70-1320, at 4 (1928) (emphasis added). Thus, hidden behind the seemingly straightforward and broad statutory language of section 2954 is legislative history that leaves some uncertainty as to the precise scope of demandable information. See Fisher, supra , at 363.

B. Factual Background

Now, spring forward 85 years. On August 5, 2013, GSA entered into a lease agreement with Trump Old Post Office LLC, a company owned by now President Donald J.

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Bluebook (online)
321 F. Supp. 3d 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cummings-v-murphy-cadc-2018.