WASHINGTON -- Using a century-old Supreme Court case as a model, lawyers for 15 Democratic representatives and the League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging the constitutionality of a new rule in the House of Representatives that requires a three-fifths vote to approve any increase in the income tax rate.
"It sets an extremely dangerous precedent that should not be allowed to stand," said Rep. David E. Skaggs of Colorado, the driving force behind the lawsuit. "While this year the super-majority requirement might apply just to taxes, next year it could be trade or civil rights or clean air legislation or even a declaration of war."
Two of the country's most respected constitutional lawyers are handling the complaint without compensation. They are Lloyd N. Cutler, a partner in the Washington-based law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, and Bruce Ackerman, a professor at Yale Law School.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, asks that the court toss out the three-fifths majority rule, first on the ground that it violates the constitutional principle of majority rule because it gives effective control to the minority during House debate on tax issues.
Second, it says that the rule's prohibition on the consideration of any legislation containing a retroactive increase in federal income taxes bars Congress from conducting its constitutionally mandated job of imposing and collecting taxes.
The model for the lawsuit is an 1892 case, United States vs. Ballin, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the House had an absolute and unchallenged right to make rules for its operations so long as it does "not ignore constitutional constraints or violate fundamental rights."