Political Question Criteria

• A textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department
• A lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving the case
• The impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non-judicial discretion
• The impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches
• An unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made
• The potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments of the government

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Guaranty Clause

• The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government . . . . (Art IV, § 4)

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Art. I, § 3, cl. 6

• The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.

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Powell v. McCormack

• Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members . . . . (Art. I, § 5, cl. 1)
• No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the Age of twenty-five years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and . . . Be an Inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen (Art. I, § 2, cl. 2)

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Article V

• [Constitutional] Amendments . . . shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by Congress. . . .