Nixon v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
150 federal appellate · 66 district · 151 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 573 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Clinton v. Jones (1997), U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995)
150 federal appellate · 66 district · 151 state decisions — followed in 25 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
reviewedNixon v. United States (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Baker v. Carr · Powell v. McCormack · Mistretta v. United States · Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers Union, Local 473 v. McElroy
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 573 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he concept of a textual commitment to a coordinate political department is not completely separate from the concept of a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; the lack of judicially manageable standards may strengthen the conclusion that there is a textually demonstrable commitment to a coordinate branch.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage“Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“"impart to the word `qualifications' in Art. I, § 5, `a precise limited nature.' ... Thus, the House's argument that its power to judge the qualifications of its own members is a textually demonstrable commitment of unreviewable authority is `defeated by the existence of this separate provision specifying the only qualifications which might be imposed for House membership.'"”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.