Powell v. McCormack’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
1,750 federal appellate · 719 district · 704 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,466 later decisions (165 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Elrod v. Burns (1976)
1,750 federal appellate · 719 district · 704 state decisions — followed in 47 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedPowell v. McCormack (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 2 U.S.C. § 34 · 2 U.S.C. § 35 · 2 U.S.C. § 47 · 2 U.S.C. § 48 · 2 U.S.C. § 80 · 2 U.S.C. § 83 · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 1344
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Bell v. Hood · Sibron v. State of New York Peters · Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · United States v. W. T. Grant Co.
Cited together with Baker v. Carr · Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · United States v. W. T. Grant Co. · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. · United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 5,466 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“when the issues presented are no longer 'live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.”
201 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Our system of government requires that federal courts on occasion interpret the Constitution in a manner at variance with the construction given the document by another branch. The alleged conflict that such an adjudication may cause cannot justify the courts’ avoiding their constitutional responsibility.”
173 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.