SPALLONE v. UNITED STATES ET AL.
No. 88-854
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 2, 1989-Decided January 10, 1990
493 U.S. 265
*Together with No. 88-856, Chema v. United States et al., and No. 88-870, Longo et al. v. United States et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
Solicitor General Starr argued the cause for respondents in all cases. With him on the brief for the United States were Acting Assistant Attorney General Turner, Deputy Solicitor General Shapiro, Michael R. Lazerwitz, David K. Flynn, and Linda F. Thome. Grover G. Hankins filed a brief for respondents Yonkers Branch-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al.†
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action is the most recent episode of a lengthy lawsuit in which the city of Yonkers was held liable for intentionally enhancing racial segregation in housing in Yonkers. The issue here is whether it was a proper exercise of judicial power for the District Court to hold petitioners, four Yonkers city councilmembers, in contempt for refusing to vote in favor of legislation implementing a consent decree earlier approved by the city. We hold that in the circumstances of this action the District Court abused its discretion.
†Steven R. Shapiro, Christopher A. Hansen, John A. Powell, Helen Hershkoff, and Arthur N. Eisenberg filed a brief for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Henry Mark Holzer, Daniel J. Popeo, and Paul D. Kamenar filed a brief for the Yonkers Federation, Inc., as amicus curiae.
In 1980, the United States filed a complaint alleging, inter alia, that the two named defendants-the city of Yonkers and the Yonkers Community Development Agency-had intentionally engaged in a pattern and practice of housing discrimination, in violation of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 82 Stat. 81, as amended,
The District Court found the two named defendants liable, concluding that the segregative effect of the city‘s actions had been “consistent and extreme,” and that “the desire to preserve existing patterns of segregation ha[d] been a significant factor in the sustained community opposition to subsidized housing in East Yonkers and other overwhelmingly white areas of the City.” United States v. Yonkers Bd. of Ed., 624 F. Supp. 1276, 1369-1371 (SDNY 1985). The District Court in its remedial decree enjoined “the City of Yonkers, its officers, agents, employees, successors and all persons in active concert or participation with any of them” from, inter alia, intentionally promoting racial residential segregation in Yonkers, taking any action intended to deny or make unavailable housing to any person on account of race or national origin, and from blocking or limiting the availability of public or subsidized housing in east or northwest Yonkers on the basis of race or national origin. United States v. Yonkers Bd. of Ed., 635 F. Supp. 1577 (SDNY 1986). Other parts of the remedial order were directed only to the city. They required affirmative steps to disperse public housing throughout Yonkers. Part IV of the order noted that the city previously had committed itself to provide acceptable sites for 200 units of public housing as a condition for receiving 1983 Community Development Block Grant funds from the Federal Government, but had failed to do so. Consequently, it required the city to designate sites for 200 units of public housing in east Yonkers, and to submit to the Department of Housing and Urban Development an acceptable Housing Assistance Plan for 1984-1985 and other documentation. Id., at 1580-1581. Part VI directed the city to develop by November 1986 a long-term plan “for the creation of additional subsidized family housing units . . . in existing residential areas in east or northwest Yonkers.” Id., at 1582. The court did not mandate specific details of the plan such as how many subsidized units must be developed, where they should be constructed, or how the city should provide for the units.
Under the Charter of the city of Yonkers all legislative powers are vested in the city council, which consists of an elected mayor and six councilmembers, including petitioners. The city, for all practical purposes, therefore, acts through the city council when it comes to the enactment of legislation. Pending appeal of the District Court‘s liability and remedial orders, however, the city did not comply with Parts IV and VI of the remedial order. The city failed to propose sites for the public housing, and in November 1986, informed the District Court that it would not present a long-term plan in compliance with Part VI. The United States and the NAACP then moved for an adjudication of civil contempt and the imposition of coercive sanctions, but the District Court declined to take that action. Instead, it secured an agreement from the city to appoint an outside housing adviser to identify sites for the 200 units of public housing and to draft a long-term plan.
“It is further ORDERED that, in the event the City of Yonkers fails to enact the legislative package on or before August 1, 1988, the City of Yonkers shall be required to show cause at a hearing before this Court at 10:00 a.m. on August 2, 1988, why it should not be held in contempt, and each individual City Council member shall be required to show cause at a hearing before this Court at 10:00 a.m. on August 2, 1988, why he should not be held in contempt.” App. 398.
Further provisions of the order specified escalating daily amounts of fines in the event of contempt, and provided that if the legislation were not enacted before August 10, 1988, any councilmember who remained in contempt should be committed to the custody of the United States Marshal for
Nоtwithstanding the threat of substantial sanctions, on August 1 the city council defeated a resolution of intent to adopt the legislative package, known as the Affordable Housing Ordinance, by a vote of 4 to 3 (petitioners constituting the majority). On August 2, the District Court held a hearing to afford the city and the councilmembers an opportunity to show cause why they should not be adjudicated in contempt. It rejected the city‘s arguments, held the city in contempt, and imposed the coercive sanctions set forth in the July 26 order. After questioning the individual councilmembers as to the reasons for their negative votes, the court also held each of the petitioners in contempt and imposed sanctions. It refused to accept the contention that the proper subject of the contempt sanctions was the city of Yonkers alone, see id., at 461, and overruled the objection that the court lacked the power to direct councilmembers how to vote, because in light of the consent judgment, it thought the city council‘s adoption of the Affordable Housing Ordinance would be “in the nature of a ministerial act.” Id., at 460.
On August 9, the Court of Appeals stayed the contempt sanctions pending appeal. Shortly thereafter, the court affirmed the adjudications of contempt against both the city and the councilmembers, but limited the fines against the city so that they would not exceed $1 million per day. United States v. Yonkers, 856 F. 2d 444 (CA2 1988). The Court of Appeals refused to accept the councilmembers’ argument that the District Court abused its discretion in selecting its method of enforcing the consent judgment. While recognizing that “a court is obliged to use the least possible power adequate to the end proрosed,” id. at 454 (quoting Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 231 (1821)), it concluded that the District Court‘s choice of coercive contempt sanctions against
Both the city and the councilmembers requested this Court to stay imposition of sanctions pending filing and disposition of petitions for certiorari. We granted a stay as to petitioners, but denied the city‘s request. 487 U. S. 1251 (1988). With the city‘s contempt sanction approaching $1 million per day, the city council finally enacted the Affordable Housing Ordinance on September 9, 1988, by a vote of 5 to 2, petitioners Spallone and Fagan voting no. Because the contempt orders raise important issues about the appropriate exercise of the federal judicial power against individual legislators, we granted certiorari, 489 U. S. 1064 (1989), and now reverse.
II
The issue before us is relatively narrow. There can be no question about the liability of the city of Yonkers for racial discrimination: the District Court imposed such liability on the city, its decision was affirmed in all respects by the Court of Appeals, and we denied certiorari. Nor do we have before us any question as to the District Court‘s remedial order; the Court of Appeals found that it was within the bounds of
Petitioners contend that the District Court‘s order violates their rights to freedom of speech under the First Amendment, and they also contend that they are entitled as legislators to absolute immunity for actions taken in discharge of their legislative responsibilities. We find it unnecessary to reach either of these questions, because we conclude that the portion of the District Court‘s order of July 26 imposing contempt sanctions against petitioners if they failed to vote in favor of the court-proposed ordinance was an abuse of discretion under traditional equitable principles.
Before discussing the principles informing our conclusion, it is important to note the posture of the case before the District Court at the time it entered the order in question. Petitioners were members of the city council of the city of Yonkers, and if the city were to enact legislation it would have to be by their doing. But petitioners had never been made parties to the action, and the District Court‘s order imposed liability only on the named defendants in the action-the city of Yonkers and the Yonkers Community Development Agеncy. The remedial order had enjoined the two named defendants, and in the traditional language of a prohibitory decree-officers, agents, and others acting in concert with them from discriminating on the basis of race in connection with the furnishing of housing and from intentionally promoting racial residential segregation in Yonkers. The order had gone on to require extensive affirmative steps to disperse public housing throughout Yonkers, but those portions of the order were directed only against the city. There was no evidence taken at the hearing of July 26, 1988, and the court‘s order of that date did not make petitioners parties to the action.
All of this changed, however, in June 1988, when this Court denied certiorari and the District Court‘s orders on the merits of the case became final. On July 26, the court heard the comments of counsel for the parties and entered the order upon which the contempt sanctions against the individual councilmembers were based.
At this stage of the case, the court contemplated various methods by which to ensure compliance with its remedial orders. It considered proceeding under
In selecting a means to enforce the consent judgment, the District Court was entitled to rely on the axiom that “courts have inherent power to enforce compliance with their lawful orders through civil contempt.” Shillitani v. United States, 384 U. S. 364, 370 (1966). When a district court‘s order is necessary to remedy past discrimination, the court has an additional basis for the exercise of broad equitable powers. See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed., 402 U. S. 1, 15 (1971). But while “remedial powers of an equity court must be adequate to the task, they are not unlimited.” Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 161 (1971). “[T]he federal courts in devising a remedy must take into acсount the interests of state and local authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution.” Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280-281 (1977). And the use of the contempt power places an additional limitation on a district court‘s discretion, for as the Court of Appeals recognized, “in selecting contempt sanctions, a court is obliged to use the ‘least possible power adequate to the end proposed.‘” 856 F. 2d, at 454 (quoting Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat., at 231).
Given that the city had entered a consent judgment committing itself to enact legislation implementing the long-term plan, we certainly cannot say it was an abuse of discretion for the District Court to have chosen contempt sanctions against the city, as opposed to petitioners, as a means of ensuring compliance. The city, as we have noted, was a party to the action from the beginning, had been found liable for numerous statutory and constitutional violations, and had been subjected to various elaborate remedial decrees which had been upheld on appeal. Petitioners, the individual city councilmembers, on the other hand, were not parties to the action, and they had not been found individually liable for any of the violations upon which the remedial decree was based. Although the injunctive portion of that decree was directed
It was the city, in fact, which capitulated. After the Court of Appeals had briefly stayed the imposition of sanctions in August, and we granted a stay as to petitioners but denied it to the city in September, the city council on September 9, 1988, finally enacted the Affordable Housing Ordinance by a vote of 5 to 2. While the District Court could not have been sure in late July that this would be the result, the city‘s arguments against imposing sanctions on it pointed out the sort of pressure that such sanctions would place on the city. After just two weeks of fines, the city‘s emergency financial plan required it to curtail sanitation services (resulting in uncollected garbage), eliminate part-time school crossing guards, close all public libraries and parks, and lay off approximately 447 employees. In the ensuing four weeks, the city would have been forced to lay off another 1,100 city employees. See N. Y. Times, Sept. 8, 1988, p. A1, col. 4; N. Y. Times, Sept. 9, 1988, p. A1, col. 4.
Only eight months earlier, the District Court had secured compliance with an important remedial order through the threat of bankrupting fines against the city alone. After the city had delayed for several months the adoption of a 1987-1988 Housing Assistance Plan (HAP) vital to the public housing required by Part IV of the remedial order, the court ordered the city to carry out its obligation within two days. App. 176. The court set a schedule of contempt fines equal to that assessed for violation of the orders in this litigation and recognized that the consequence would be imminent bankruptcy for the city. Id., at 177-179. Later the same day, the city council agreed to support a resolution putting in place an effective HAP and reaffirming the commitment of
The nub of the matter, then, is whether in the light of the reasonable probability that sanctions against the city would accomplish the desired result, it was within the court‘s discretion to impose sanctions on petitioners as well under the circumstances of this case.
In Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367 (1951), we held that state legislators were absolutely privileged in their legislative acts in an action against them for damages. We applied this same doctrine of legislative immunity to regional legislatures in Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 440 U. S. 391, 404-405 (1979), and to actions for both damages and injunctive relief in Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 446 U. S. 719, 731-734 (1980). The holdings in these cases do not control the question whether local legislators such as petitioners should be immune from contempt sanctions imposed for failure to vote in favor of a particular legislative bill. But some of the same considerations on which the immunity doctrine is based must inform the District Court‘s exercise of its discretion in a case such as this. “Freedom of speech and action in the legislature,” we observed, “was taken as a matter of course by those who sev-
In perhaps the earliest American case to consider the import of the legislative privilege, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, interpreting a provision of the Massachusetts Constitution granting the rights of freedom of speech and debate to state legislators, recognized that “the privilege secured by it is not so much the privilege of the house as an organized body, as of each individual member composing it, who is entitled to this privilege, even against the declared will of the house. For he does not hold this privilege at the pleasure of the house; but derives it from the will of the people . . . .” Coffin v. Coffin, 4 Mass. 1, 27 (1808). This theme underlies our cases interpreting the Speech or Debate Clause and the fedеral common law of legislative immunity, where we have emphasized that any restriction on a legislator‘s freedom undermines the “public good” by interfering with the rights of the people to representation in the democratic process. Lake Country Estates, supra, at 404-405; Tenney, supra, at 377. The District Court was quite sensitive to this fact; it observed:
“I know of no parallel for a court to say to an elected official, ‘You are in contempt of court and subject to personal fines and may eventually be subject to personal imprisonment because of a manner in which you cast a vote.’ I find that extraordinary.” App. 433.
Sanctions directed against the city for failure to take actions such as those required by the consent decree coerce the city legislators and, of course, restrict the freedom of those legislators to act in accordance with their current view of the city‘s best interests. But we believe there are significant differences between the two types of fines. The imposition of sanctions on individual legislators is designed to cause them to vote, not with a view to the interest of their constituents or of the city, but with a view solely to their own personal interests. Even though an individual legislator took
This sort of individual sanction effects a much greater perversion of the normal legislative process than does the imposition of sanctions on the city for the failure of these same legislators to enact an ordinance. In that case, the legislator is only encouraged to vote in favor of an ordinance that he would not otherwise favor by reason of the adverse sanctions imposed on the city. A councilman who felt that his constituents would rather have the city enact the Affordable Housing Ordinance than pay a “bankrupting fine” would be motivated to vote in favor of such an ordinance because the sanctions were a threat to the fiscal solvency of the city for whose welfare he was in part responsible. This is the sort of calculus in which legislators engage regularly.
We hold that the District Court, in view of the “extraordinary” nature of the imposition of sanctions against the individual councilmembers, should have proceeded with such contempt sanctions first against the city alone in order to secure compliance with the remedial order. Only if that approach failed to produce compliance within a reasonable time should the question of imposing contempt sanctions against petitioners even have been considered. “This limitation accords with the doctrine that a court must exercise ‘[t]he least possible power adequate to the end proposed.‘” Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 231 (1821); In re Michael, 326 U. S. 224, 227 (1945). Shillitani v. United States, 384 U. S., at 371.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
I understand and appreciate the Court‘s concern about the District Court‘s decision to impose contempt sanctions against local officials acting in a legislative capacity. We must all hope that no court will ever again face the open and sustained official defiance of established constitutional values and valid judicial orders that prompted Judge Sand‘s invocation of the contempt power in this manner. But I firmly believe that its availability for such use, in extreme circumstances, is essential. As the District Court was aware:
“The issues transcend Yonkers. They go to the very foundation of the system of constitutional government. If Yonkers can defy the orders of a federal court in any case, but especially a civil rights case, because compliance is unpopular, and if that situation is tolerated, then our constitutional system of government fails. The issues before the court this morning are no less significant than that.” App. 177.
The Court today recognizes that it was appropriate for the District Court to hold in contempt and fine the city of Yonkers to encourage the city councilmembers to comply with their prior promise to redress the city‘s history of racial segregation. Yet the Court also reprimands the District Court for simultaneously fining the individual councilmembers whose continuing defiance was the true source of the impasse, holding that personal sanctions should have been considered only after the city sanctions first proved fruitless.
I cannot accept this parsimonious view of the District Court‘s discretion to wield the power of contempt. Judge Sand‘s intimate contact for many years with the recalcitrant councilmembers and his familiarity with the city‘s political climate gave him special insight into the best way to coerce compliance when all cooperative efforts had failed. From
I
For the past four decades, Yonkers officials have relentlessly preserved and exacerbated racial residential segregation throughout the city. The population of black and Hispanic residents grew from 3% in 1940 to 19% in 1980. Over 80% now reside in Yonkers’ southwest section, and this channeling did not happen by chance. Starting in 1949, city officials initiated a series of low-income housing projects designed to serve the housing needs of this growing population; but city officials concentrated 96.6% of these projects in or adjacent to the southwest section, preserving east and northwest Yonkers as overwhelmingly white communities.1 At the same time, city officials manipulated the public school
Respondent United States brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to challenge these racially discriminatory practices, and respondent NAACP intervened. After a 14-month trial, Judge Sand took 277 pages to detail the myriad of racially motivated government acts and omissions and held the city of Yonkers and various agencies liable for intentional racial segregation in both housing and public education. United States v. Yonkers Bd. of Education, 624 F. Supp. 1276 (1985). With respect to the housing issue, Judge Sand found a “remarkably consistent and extreme” pattern of segregationist efforts “characterized by a common theme: racially influenced opposition to subsidized housing in certain [predominantly white] areas of the City, and acquiescence in that opposition by City officials.” Id., at 1369, 1370. Because “the operation of the City‘s ward system provided strong incentive for individual councilmen to defer to the views of their constituents on subsidized housing, and for the Council as a whole to defer to the views of the ward councilman,” id., at 1369, the council routinely designed its housing policies to give effect to its white constituents’ ardent insistence on residential purity. Judge Sand summed up his extensive factual findings as follows:
“In short, we find the unusual scope and complexity of plaintiffs’ contentions to be matched by evidence of discriminatory intent that is itself unusual in its strength and abundance. Having considered the evidence in its entirety, this Court is fully persuaded that the extreme concentration of subsidized housing that exists in Southwest Yonkers today is the result of a pattern and practice of racial discrimination by City officials, pursued in
response to constituent pressures to select or support only sites that would preserve existing patterns of racial segregation, and to reject or oppose sites that would threaten existing patterns of segregation. This pattern of discriminatory actions is evident as early as the first selection of sites for public housing under the National Housing Act of 1949, and it has continued, unbroken, through 1982.” Id., at 1373.
After conducting a 6-day hearing to determine apprоpriate remedies, Judge Sand issued on May 28, 1986, a Housing Remedy Order that required the city to facilitate the development of public and subsidized housing outside southwest Yonkers. United States v. Yonkers Board of Education, 635 F. Supp. 1577 (SDNY). The order required construction of 200 units of public housing; the city was required to propose sites for 140 units within 30 days and sites for the remaining 60 units within 90 days. The order also required the city to provide additional units of subsidized housing in east or northwest Yonkers, leaving the city broad discretion to choose the precise number and location of these subsidized units. The city was given approximately six months to present for court approval a detailed long-term plan specifying, among other things, the number of subsidized units to be constructed or acquired, their location, and the rent levels or degree of subsidization.
Although these requirements were not stayed pending appeal, the city immediately defaulted on its obligations. Officials proposed no sites for the 200 units of public housing within the specified 30 and 90 days, and they failed to present a long-term plan for subsidized housing within six months. Indeed, city officials pointedly told Judge Sand that they would not comply with these aspects of the Housing Remedy Order. Respondents moved for an adjudication of civil contempt and the imposition of coercive sanctions. Judge Sand denied this motion, instead negotiating with the city for appointment of an outside housing adviser to help the city iden-
The adviser recommended eight available sites for housing. The city council responded by passing a resolution conditioning its support for the adviser‘s general plan on a number of terms drastically limiting the scope and efficacy of the remedy, including (1) staying all construction until the city had exhausted all appeals; (2) reducing the units of subsidized housing from 800 to 200; and (3) allowing local residential committees to screen all applicants for public housing. The city then proposed that the Housing Remedy Order be modified in accordance with the city council‘s resolution. Judge Sand offered to consider the city‘s motion, explaining that he believed it appropriate to implement a remedy “embody[ing] to the maximum possible extent consistent with the purposes of the housing remedy order the views of the community itself.” App. 87. To ensure that the city‘s proposal was not merely intended as a dilatory tactic, however, Judge Sand asked the city council to demonstrate its good faith by taking the preliminary steps necessary to obtain control of the potential housing sites identified by the housing adviser by, for example, passing a resolution requesting a neighboring county to permit the city to use identified county sites for housing.
But the city council neither passed the suggested resolution nor took any other action to obtain the proposed sites. The city‘s attorney informed Judge Sand that the city was still trying to devise a politically acceptable plan, but the attorney could not assure the judge that the plan, or any other action by the city council, would be forthcoming. During the remainder of 1987, the parties bickered over the selection of various sites to be used for construction of the 200 promised public units, and city officials still refused to propose a long-term plan.
On December 28, 1987, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed both Judgе Sand‘s liability and remedy rulings with respect to both the housing discrimination and school segregation claims. In so doing, the court rejected as “frivolous” the city‘s challenge to Judge Sand‘s finding that the city officials’ subsidized housing decisions were made with a “segregative purpose.” United States v. Yonkers Board of Education, 837 F. 2d 1181, 1222 (2d Cir. 1987), cert. denied, 486 U. S. 1055 (1988). The next month, the city indicated to Judge Sand that the parties had started negotiating an agreement designed to implement the Housing Remedy Order. On January 25, 1988, the parties informed the court that they had reached an agreement in principle. The Yonkers City Council approved the agreement by a 5-to-2 vote on January 27, with petitioners Chema and Spallone dissenting. Judge Sand entered the agreement, the “First Remedial Consent Decree in Equity” (Consent Decree), as a consent judgment the next day. The Consent Decree reiterated the city‘s pledge to build the 200 required public units, identified seven sites, and committed the city to a specific construction timetable. The city also promised to forgo any further judicial review of this aspect of the remedial order.
The Consent Decree also set a goal of 800 units of subsidized housing to be developed over four years in conjunction with market-rate housing developments, and it committed the city to specific actions needed to encourage private developers to build such housing. In §17 of the Consent Decree, the city expressly agreed to adopt legislation (referred to as the Affordable Housing Ordinance) conditioning the future construction of multifamily housing in Yonkers on the inclusion of at least 20% subsidized units, and providing for such private development incentives as zoning changes, tax abatements, and density bonuses. The city expressly agreed to enact this legislation within 90 days after entry of the Consent Decree. Section 18 of the Consent Decree provided that the city would negotiate further to resolve certain “sub
Rather than abide by the terms of the Consent Decree, the city councilmembers sought almost immediately to disavow it. First, citing intense community opposition to the plan, the city moved to delete the provision forgoing judicial review of its obligation to build the 200 units, and the city even offered to return approximately $30 million in grants previously provided by the Federal Government to fund its low-income housing programs if this Court ultimately were to set aside the city‘s duty to encourage the long-term development of subsidized housing in white neighborhoods. After Judge Sand denied the motion, the city promptly informed him that it would not enact the legislation it had earlier approved in §17 of the Decree and it was “not interested” in completing negotiations on the long-term plan as required by §18. Finally, the city moved to vacate the Consent Decree in toto, arguing that the city‘s failure to secure permission of the Archdiocese of New York for using some seminary property as a housing site constituted a “mutual mistake” invalidating the entire agreement. Judge Sand denied this motion, “a transparent ploy . . . to avoid any responsibility for the court decree or implementation of the housing remedy order.” App. 275.
In response to the city‘s recalcitrance, respondents moved for entry of a Long Term Plan Order based upon a draft piece of legislation that had recently been prеpared by the city‘s attorneys and housing consultants. On June 13, following comments from the city, revisions by respondents, and an evidentiary hearing, Judge Sand entered a Long Term Plan Order which, accommodating the city‘s concerns, provided the details of the Affordable Housing Ordinance that the city council was required to enact pursuant to the Consent Decree. On the same day, this Court denied the city‘s petition for writ of certiorari to review the original finding of liabil
The next day, the city council unanimously passed a resolution declaring a moratorium on all public housing construction in Yonkers, in unabashed defiance of the Housing Remedy Order, Consent Decree, and Long Term Plan Order. Nearly two months after the deadline set in the Consent Decree for the city‘s enactment of the necessary implementing legislation, the city council informed Judge Sand through the city attorney that it would not consider taking any legislative action until August at the earliest.
In light of the city‘s renewed defiance, Judge Sand sought assurance of the city‘s basic commitment to comply. He orally requested the city council to pass a resolution endorsing the provisions of the Consent Decree and the Long Term Plan Order, with enactment of the Affordable Housing Ordinance to follow after the city fine-tuned some final aspects. The city council responded by defeating a resolution that would have required it to honor its previous commitments.2
Respondents then submitted a proposed order setting a timetable for the city‘s enactment of the promised Affordable Housing Ordinance, under penalty of contempt. The city baldly responded that it would “not voluntarily adopt the legislation contemplated by” the Cоnsent Decree and the Long Term Plan Order. Thereafter, Judge Sand entered an order (Contempt Order) directing the city to enact by August 1 the Affordable Housing Ordinance that had been drafted by the city‘s consultants to implement the Consent Decree and the Long Term Plan Order. The Contempt Order specified that if the Housing Ordinance were not timely enacted, the city and city councilmembers would face contempt adjudication and the following sanctions: the city would be fined $100 for the first day and the amount would double each day of noncompliance thereafter; and the councilmembers voting
On August 1, the city council defeated such a resolution by a 4-to-3 vote. Finding this defeat “but the latest of a series of contempts,” App. 416, Judge Sand held the city and each of the councilmembers who voted against the resolution in civil contempt and imposed the coercive sanctions specified in the Contempt Order.
On August 9, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted a stay of these contempt sanctions. On August 26, the court affirmed the contempt adjudications against both the city and petitioners but limited the city‘s escalating fines to an eventual ceiling of $1 million per day. The court concluded that neither the city nor petitioners could escape responsibility for refusing to comply with the Consent Decree that the council itself had approved. The court stayed issuance of its mandate, however, to permit application to this Court for a stay pending the filing of petitions for a writ of certiorari. We granted a stay of the contempt sanctions against the individual councilmembers on September 1, but we denied the city‘s application for a similar stay. City of Yonkers v. United States, 487 U. S. 1251 (1988). A week later, the city council finally enacted the Affordable Housing Ordinance, over the dissenting votes of petitioners Spallone and Fagan.3
The Court today holds that Judge Sand acted within his discretion when he held in contempt and fined the city in an effort to coerce the city council to enact the legislation required by the Consent Decree. Ante, at 276. The Court holds, however, that Judge Sand‘s decision to assess personal fines against the individual councilmembers directly responsible for engineering and implementing the city‘s defiance constituted an abuse of discretion. Judge Sand should have considered personal sanctions, the Court believes, only if the city sanctions “failed to produce compliance within a reasonable time.” Ante, at 280.
The Court‘s disfavor of personal sanctions rests on two premises: (1) Judge Sand should have known when he issued the Contempt Order that there was a “reasonable probability that sanctions against the city [alone] would accomplish the desired result,” ante, at 278; and (2) imposing personal fines “effects a much greater perversion of the normal legislative process than does the imposition of sanctions on the city.” Ante, at 280. Because personal fines were both completely superfluous to, and more intrusive than, sanctions against the city alone, the Court reasons, the personal fines constituted an abuse of discretion. Each of these premises is mistaken.
While acknowledging that Judge Sand “could not have been sure in late July that this would be the result,” ante, at 277, the Court confidently concludes that Judge Sand should have been sure enough that fining the city would eventually coerce compliance that he should not have personally fined the councilmembers as well. In light of the information available to Judge Sand in July, the Court‘s confidence is chimerical. Although the escalating city fines eventually would have seriously disrupted many public services and employment, ibid., the Court‘s failure even to consider the possibility that the councilmembers would maintain their defiant posture despite the threat of fiscal insolvency bespeaks an ignorance of Yonkers’ history of entrenched discrimination and an indifference to Yonkers’ political reality.
The Court first fails to adhere today to our longstanding recognition that the “district court has firsthand experience with the parties and is best qualified to deal with the ‘flinty, intractable realities of day-to-day implementation of constitutional commands.‘” United States v. Paradise, 480 U. S. 149, 184 (1987) (quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U. S. 1, 6 (1971)).4 Deference to the court‘s exercise of discretion is particularly appropriate where, as here, the record clearly reveals that the court employed extreme caution before taking the final step of holding the councilmembers personally in contempt. Judge Sand patiently weathered a whirlwind of evasive maneuvers and mis-
“I know of no parallel for a court to say to an elected official: ‘You are in contempt of court and subject to personal fines and may eventually be subject to personal imprisonment because of a manner in which you cast a vote.’ I find that extraordinary.
“I find it so extraordinary that at great cost in terms of time and in terms of money and energy and implementation of court‘s orders, I have sought alternatives to that. But they have all been unsuccessful....” App. 433.
After according no weight to Judge Sand‘s cautious and contextual judgment despite his vastly superior vantage
As the events leading up to the Contempt Order make clear, the recalcitrant cоuncilmembers were extremely responsive to the strong segments of their constituencies that were vociferously opposed to racial residential integration. Councilmember Fagan, for example, explained that his vote against the Affordable Housing Ordinance required by the Consent Decree “was an act of defiance. The people clearly wanted me to say no to the judge.” Id., at 426. Councilmember Spallone declared openly that “I will be taking on the judge all the way down the line. I made a commitment to my people and that commitment remains.” Id., at 457-458. Moreover, once Yonkers had gained national attention over its refusal to integrate, many residents made it clear to their representatives on the council that they preferred bankrupt martyrdom to integration. As a contemporaneous article observed, “[t]he defiant Councilmen are riding a wave of resentment among their white constituents that is so intense that many insist they are willing to see the city bankrupted . . . .” N. Y. Times, Aug. 5, 1988, p. B2, col. 4. It thus was not evident that petitioners opposed bankrupting the city; at the very least, capitulation by any individual councilmember was widely perceived as political suicide. As a result, even assuming that each recalcitrant member sought to avoid city bankruptcy, each still had a very strong incentive to play “chicken” with his colleagues by continuing to defy the Con
Moreover, acutely aware of these political conditions, the city attorney repeatedly warned Judge Sand not to assume that the threat of bankruptcy would compel compliance. See, e. g., id., at 410 (threatening to bankrupt city “punishes the innocent” but “doesn‘t necessarily coerce compliance by the council members“); id., at 415 (bankrupting Yonkers “is indeed an unfortunate result that may obtain and that is exactly why we are urging that the city not be fined itself“). See also City of Yonkers’ Reply Memorandum of Law in Support of Stay of Contempt Sanctions in No. 88-6178 (CA2), pp. 9-10 (city argued that “in the context of a media spectacle surrounding the defiance of the Councilmembers of the District Court‘s Order . . . there is little hope of avoiding municipal bankruptcy in the hopes that the individual Councilmembers will change their vote in the near future. This Court should not rely on the hope that the individual Councilmembers will rescue the City from bankruptcy“).6 The clearest warning that the risk of insolvency might not motivate capitulation came at the contempt hearing on August 2. The city proposed that its fines be stayed until August 15 so the council could hold a public hearing and that if the council had failed to adopt the required Affordable Housing Ordinance at that time, the fines would resume as compounded for the intervening time period, meaning the city would owe over $3.2 million the very next day, and over $104 million by the end of the week. After listening to this proposal, Judge Sand asked the city attorney:
“Mr. Sculnick, seated behind you are all of the members of the city council of Yonkers. Are you making a good faith representation to the court that if such a stay were granted, you have reason to believe that on August 15th, the ordinance would be passed? Are you making such a representation?” App. 418.
Despite the fact that such an enormous liability would soon trigger bankruptcy, the city attorney replied:
“No, your Honor, I don‘t have the factual basis for making that statement.”7 Ibid.
Even if one uncharitably infers in hindsight that the city attorney was merely posturing, given the extremely high stakes I cannot agree with the Court‘s implicit suggestion that Judge Sand was required to call the city‘s bluff.
The Court‘s opinion ignores this political reality surrounding the events of July 1988 and instead focuses exclusively on the fact that, eight months earlier, Judge Sand had secured compliance with another remedial order through the threat of city sanctions alone. Ante, at 277-278. But this remedial order had required only that the city council adopt a 1987-1988 Housing Assistance Plan, a prerequisite to the city‘s qualification for federal housing subsidies. In essence, Judge Sand had to threaten the city with contempt fines just to convince the council to accept over $10 million in federal funds.
Moreover, any confidence that city sanctions alone would ever work again was eroded even further by the public outcry against the council‘s approval of thе Consent Decree, which magnified the councilmembers’ determination to defy future judicial orders. The council‘s post-Decree conduct represented renewed “efforts by the city council to extricate itself from the political consequences which it believes have resulted from its assuming any degree of responsibility in connection with implementation of the housing plan.” Id., at 272. Given the nature of the original contempt “success” and the heightened level of obstruction and recalcitrance thereafter, Judge Sand was justified in questioning whether the sanction of city fines alone would work again.
The Court, in addition to ignoring all of this evidence before concluding that city sanctions alone would eventually coerce compliance, also inexplicably ignores the fact that imposing personal fines in addition to sanctions against the city would not only help ensure but actually hasten compliance. City sanctions, by design, impede the normal operation of local government. Judge Sand knew that each day the councilmembers remained in contempt, the city would suffer an ever-growing financial drain that threatened not only to disrupt many critical city services but also to frustrate the long-term success of the underlying remedial scheme. Fines assessed against the public fisc directly “diminish the limited resources which the city has to comply with the Decree,”
Given these ancillary effects of city sanctions, it seems to me entirely appropriate—indeed obligatory—for Judge Sand to have considered, not just whether сity sanctions alone would eventually have coerced compliance, but also how promptly they would have done so. The Court‘s implicit conclusion that personal sanctions were redundant both exaggerates the likelihood that city sanctions alone would have worked at all, see supra, at 293-295, and also fails to give due weight to the importance of speed, because supplementing the city sanctions with personal sanctions certainly increased the odds for prompt success. At the very least, personal sanctions made political martyrdom a much more unattractive option for the councilmembers. In light of the tremendous stakes at issue, I cannot fault Judge Sand for deciding to err on the side of being safe rather than sorry.
In sum, the record does not support the Court‘s casual conclusion today that Judge Sand should have perceived a “reasonable probability that sanctions against the city [alone] would accomplish the desired result.” Ante, at 278. Rather, the city councilmembers’ vehement and unyielding defiance of Judge Sand‘s remedial orders, and his political acumen borne of eight years’ firsthand experience with the Yonkers political environment, led him quite reasonably to believe that city sanctions alone would have induced compliance only slowly if at all and at great cost to the city and long-term remedial success, and that personal sanctions would enhance both the promptness and ultimate likelihood of compliance. Under these circumstances, Judge Sand‘s cautious exercise of contempt power was within the permissible bounds of his remedial discretion. The Court‘s determination to play district court-for-a-day—and to do so poorly—is indefensible.
The Court purports to bolster its judgment by contending that personal sanctions against city councilmembers effect a greater interference than city sanctions with the “‘interests of . . . local authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution.‘” Ante, at 276 (quoting Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U. S. 267, 280-281 (1977)). Without holding today that the doctrine of absolute legislative immunity itself is applicable to local (as opposed to state and regional) legislative bodies, ante, at 278, the Court declares that the principle of legislative independence underlying this doctrine “must inform the District Court‘s exercise of its discretion in a case such as this.” Ibid.
According to the Court, the principle of legislative independence does not preclude the District Court from attempting to coerce the city councilmembers into compliance with their promises contained in the Consent Decree. The Court acknowledges that “[s]anctions directed against the city for failure to take actions such as those required by the consent decree coerce the city legislators and, of course, restrict the freedom of those legislators to act in accordance with their current view of the city‘s best interests.” Ante, at 279. Nevertheless, the Court contends, the imposition of personal sanctions as a means of coercion “effects a much greater perversion of the normal legislative process” than city sanctions, ante, at 280, and therefore the principle of legislative independence favors the use of personal sanctions only as a fallback position. Ibid.
The Court explains that personal sanctions are designed to encourage legislators to implement the remedial decrеe “in order to avoid bankrupting themselves,” ibid., a decisionmaking process in which the recalcitrant councilmembers weigh the public‘s interests against their own private interests—a process thought inappropriate when legislators exercise their duty to represent their constituents. In contrast, city sanctions are designed to encourage legislators to act
But the Court has never evinced an overriding concern for replicating the “normal” decisionmaking process when designing coercive sanctions for state and local executive officials who, like legislators, presumably are guided by their sense of public duty rather than private benefit. While recognizing that injunctions against such executive officials occasionally must be enforced by criminal or civil contempt sanctions of fines or imprisonment, see, e. g., Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 690-691 (1978), we have never held that fining or even jailing these officials for contempt is categorically more intrusive than fining their governmental entity in order to coerce compliance indirectly. Indeed, as the author of today‘s majority opinion has written,
“There is no reason for the federal courts to engage in speculation as to whether the imposition of a fine against the State is ‘less intrusive’ than ‘sending high state officials to jail.’ So long as the rights of the plaintiffs and the authority of the District Court are amply vindicated by an award of fees [akin to a contempt fine for bad-faith litigation in defiance of federal court decrees], it should be a matter of no concern to the court whether those fees are paid by state officials personally or by the State itself.” Id., at 716 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting) (citation omitted).
Thus the Court‘s position necessarily presumes that a district court, while seeking to coerce compliance with a consent decree promising to implement a specific remedy for a constitu
The doctrine of legislative immunity recognizes that, when acting collectively to pursue a vision of the public good through legislation, legislators must be free to represent their constituents “without fear of outside interference” that would result from private lawsuits. Supreme Court of Virginia v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 446 U. S. 719, 731 (1980). Of course, legislators are bound to respect the limits placed on their discretion by the Federal Constitution; they are duty bound not to enact laws they believe to be unconstitutional, and their laws will have no effect to the extent that courts believe them to be unconstitutional. But when acting “in the sphere of legitimate legislativе activity,” Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 376 (1951)—i. e., formulating and expressing their vision of the public good within self-defined constitutional boundaries—legislators are to be “immune from deterrents to the uninhibited discharge of their legislative duty.” Id., at 377. Private lawsuits threaten to chill robust representation by encouraging legislators to avoid controversial issues or stances in order to protect themselves “not only from the consequences of litigation‘s results but also from the burden of defending themselves.‘” Supreme Court of Virginia, supra, at 732 (quoting Dombrowski v. Eastland, 387 U. S. 82, 85 (1967)).8 To encourage legislators best to represent their constituents’ interests, legislators must be afforded immunity from private suit.
I concede that personal sanctions against legislators intuitively may seem less appropriate than more traditional forms of coercing compliance with court orders. But this intuition does not withstand close scrutiny given the circumstances of these cases. When necessary, courts levy personal contempt sanctions against other types of state and local officials for flouting valid court orders, and I see no reason to treat local legislators differently when they are acting outside of their “sphere of legitimate legislative activity.” Tenney, 341 U. S., at 376.
The key question here, therefore, is whether Judge Sand abused his discretion when he decided not to rely on sanctions against the city alone but also to apply coercive pressure to the recalcitrant councilmembers on an individual basis. Given the city council‘s consistent defiance and the delicate political situation in Yonkers, Judge Sand was justifiably uncertain as to whether city sanctions alone would coerce compliance at all and, if so, whether they would do so promptly; the longer the delay in compliance, the more likely that city services would be curtailed drastically and that both budgetary constraints and growing racial tensions would undermine the long-term efficacy of the remedial decree. Under these conditions, Judge Sand‘s decision tо supplement the city sanctions with personal fines was surely a sensible approach. The Court‘s contrary judgment rests on its refusal to take the fierceness of the councilmembers’ defi
III
The Court‘s decision today that Judge Sand abused his remedial discretion by imposing personal fines simultaneously with city fines creates no new principle of law; indeed, it invokes no principle of any sort. But it directs a message to district judges that, despite their repeated and close contact with the various parties and issues, even the most delicate remedial choices by the most conscientious and deliberate judges are subject to being second-guessed by this Court. I hope such a message will not daunt the courage of district courts that, if ever again faced with such protracted defiance, must carefully yet firmly secure compliance with their remedial orders. But I worry that the Court‘s message will have the unintended effect of emboldening recalcitrant officials continually to test the ultimate reach of the remedial authority of the federal courts, thereby postponing the day when all public officers finally accept that “the responsibility of those who exercise power in a democratic government is not to reflect inflamed public feeling but to help form its understanding.” Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 26 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
I dissent.