[Footnote *] Together with No. 88-494, Washington Legal Foundation v. United States Department of Justice et al., also on appeal from the same court.

To aid the President in fulfilling his constitutional duty to appoint federal judges, the Department of Justice regularly seeks advice from the Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association (ABA) regarding potential nominees for judgeships. The ABA Committees investigations, reports, and votes on potential nominees are kept confidential, although its rating of a particular candidate is made public if he or she is in fact nominated. Appellant Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) filed suit against the Justice Department after the ABA Committee refused WLFs request for the names of potential nominees it was considering and for its reports and minutes of its meetings. The action was brought under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which, among other things, defines an "advisory committee" as any group "established or utilized" by the President or an agency to give advice on public questions, and requires a covered group to file a charter, afford notice of its meetings, open those meetings to the public, and make its minutes, records, and reports available to the public. Joined by appellant Public Citizen, WLF asked the District Court to declare the Committee an "advisory group" subject to FACAs requirements and to enjoin the Department from utilizing the ABA Committee until it complied with those requirements. The court dismissed the complaint, holding that the Departments use of the ABA Committee is subject to FACAs strictures, but ruling that applying FACA to the ABA Committee would unconstitutionally infringe on the Presidents Article II power to nominate federal judges and violate the doctrine of separation of powers.

Held:

1. Appellants have standing to bring this suit. The refusal to permit them to scrutinize the ABA Committees activities to the extent FACA allows constitutes a sufficiently distinct injury to provide standing, and the fact that other groups or citizens might make the same complaint as appellants does not lessen that injury. Moreover, although the statutes [491 U.S. 440, 441] disclosure exemptions might bar public access to many of the meetings appellants seek to attend and many of the documents they wish to view, the exemptions probably would not deny access to all meetings and documents, particularly discussions and documents regarding the ABA Committees overall functioning, and would not excuse the ABA Committees noncompliance with FACAs other provisions, such as those requiring a covered organization to file a charter and give notice of its meetings. Thus, appellants may gain significant and genuine relief if they prevail in their suit, and such potential gains are sufficient to give them standing. Pp. 448-451.

2. FACA does not apply to the Justice Departments solicitation of the ABA Committees views on prospective judicial nominees. Pp. 451-467.

(a) Whether the ABA Committee is an "advisory committee" under FACA depends upon whether it is "utilized" by the President or the Department within the statutes meaning. Read unqualifiedly, that verb would extend FACAs coverage to the ABA Committee. However, since FACA was enacted to cure specific ills - particularly the wasteful expenditure of public funds for worthless committee meetings and biased proposals by special interest groups - it is unlikely that Congress intended the statute to cover every formal and informal consultation between the President or an Executive agency and a group rendering advice. When the literal reading of a statutory term compels an odd result, this Court searches beyond the bare text for other evidence of congressional intent. Pp. 451-455.

(b) Although the question is a close one, a careful review of the