The Line
Item Veto Act of 1996 allowed the
President to "cancel", that is to void or legally nullify,
certain provisions of appropriations bills, and disallowed the use of
funds from canceled provisions for offsetting deficit spending in other
areas.
At its
passage, the Line Item Veto Act
was politically controversial.Six members of Congress, sued to prevent use of the line-item veto.
They
were granted summary judgment by the U.S. District Court, but the Supreme
Court held that the Congressmen lacked standing and dismissed their suit.
Several
entities, including the City of New York filed suit in a second attempt
to have the Act declared unconstitutional.
The
Trial Court ruled for the plaintiffs, holding that the Line Item Veto
Act was unconstitutional.
Because
the Line Item Veto Act
established an expedited appeal process for challenges, the case was
directly appealed from the District Court to the Supreme Court.
The
Supreme Court ruled the law violated Article I Section 7 of the Constitution.
The Line
Item Veto Act allowed the President
to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of duly enacted statutes by using
line-item cancellations, it violated the Presentment Clause
of the Constitution, which outlines a specific practice for enacting a
statute.
The
Supreme Court construed the silence of the Constitution on the subject of
such unilateral Presidential action as equivalent to "an express
prohibition", agreeing with historical material that supported the
conclusion that statutes may only be enacted "in accord with a
single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure", and
that a bill must be approved or rejected by the President in its
entirety.
Justice
Scalia wrote that basically the President already has the equivalent of a
line-item veto, since the President already has the authority to not spend
money on a program he doesn't like.What's the difference?
In a
dissent, Justice Breyer contended that the objective of the Act was
constitutionally proper and was consistent with powers that the President
has held in the past.
The
Act, "does not violate any specific textual constitutional command,
nor does it violate any implicit Separation of Powers principle."
This
ruling is a companion to the Nondelegation Doctrine.In that doctrine, it was held that Congress does not have the
authority to give away its powers to make laws.Here, it appears that Congress is not allowed to allow
the Executive Branch to modify laws they make.
