Clinton v. City of
New York, , is a legal case
in which the Supreme Court of the United
States
ruled that the line-item
veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996
violated the Presentment Clause
of the United States
Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United
States the power to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of
statutes that had been duly passed by the
United States
Congress. The decision of the Court, in a six-to-three
majority, was delivered by Justice
John Paul Stevens.
Background of the case
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.
Political circumstances
The 1994 federal
midterm elections
signaled a sea-change in
American politics known as the
Republican Revolution, with
the Republican Party wresting control of both houses of the U.S.
Congress from Democrats. Key to that revolution was the
Republicans'
Contract with
America, which included a list of actions they promised to take
if they gained control of Congress. Among this list was the Line
Item Veto Act itself, one of two provisions designed to ensure
Congressional fiscal conservatism. The Act was the only provision
of the "Contract with America" that then-President
Bill Clinton supported.
Initial litigation
At its passage, the Act was politically controversial, with many
Democrats breaking with Clinton to oppose it. Of the opposition,
six members of Congress, including Republican
Mark Hatfield 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 because they could not show
any particularized harm, and dismissed their suit. Within the next
two months, Clinton began using the line-item veto, prompting
several entities to file suit in a second attempt to have the Act
declared unconstitutional.
In the second case, which was consolidated from two cases by the
U.S.
District Court
for the District of Columbia, the City of New York
and several organizations related to health care alleged injury from President
Clinton's cancellation of certain provisions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that
eliminated certain liabilities, and Snake River Potato Growers,
Inc. alleged injury from the President's cancellation of certain
provisions of the Taxpayer
Relief Act of 1997 that gave tax benefits to
aid farmer's cooperatives in purchasing
potato processing facilities.
The District Court ruled for the plaintiffs, holding that the Line
Item Veto Act was unconstitutional. Because the Act established an
expedited appeal process for challenges, the case was directly
appealed from the District Court to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court's decision
In a majority opinion written by Justice
John Paul Stevens, the Court ruled that
because the 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
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.
Breyer's dissent
In a
dissenting opinion, Justice
Stephen Breyer contended that the
objective of the Act was constitutionally proper and was consistent
with powers that the President has held in the past, stating that
the Act "does not violate any specific textual constitutional
command, nor does it violate any implicit Separation of Powers
principle." He extensively refers to many different cases which
support the delegation of power by
the Congress, and primarily suggests
that the Act is an efficient means by which a constitutionally
legitimate end may be achieved.
Kennedy's concurrence
Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy, in an
opinion concurring in the opinion and
judgment of the Court, objected to the dissent's argument that the
Act did not violate principles of the
separation
of powers and threaten individual
liberty, stating that the "undeniable effects" of
the Act were to "enhance the President's power to reward one group
and punish another, to help one set of taxpayers and hurt another,
to favor one State and ignore another". Kennedy's concurrence
implicitly viewed the statute as a violation of the
nondelegation doctrine.
Scalia's partial concurrence and partial dissent
In an alternative opinion, Justice
Antonin Scalia objected to the Court's
consideration of the case with respect to the Taxpayer Relief Act,
finding no party in the case with
standing to challenge it. However, he did
find a party with standing to challenge the President's
cancellation in the Balanced Budget Act, and concluded that it did
not violate the Constitution, because the Congress has the power to
delegate the discretionary authority to decline to spend
appropriated sums of money, which he asserted was equivalent to
cancellation.
Critical response
Michael B. Rappaport argued that the original
meaning of the Constitution does not apply to certain parts of the
nondelegation doctrine,
relying on his interpretation of the Executive Power Vesting
Clause. Under this view, "laws that authorize the withdrawal of
money from the treasury and which have traditionally taken the form
of authorizing a certain amount to be spent for particular programs
... are not subject to the nondelegation doctrine." He further
criticized the majority opinion for failing to satisfactorily
justify its application of a stricter standard to the delegation of
cancellation authority than it had used in the past for other
executive delegations. In Rappaport’s opinion, "...the Court’s
approach to cancellation authority has no basis in text, structure
and purpose, or precedent."
J. Stephen Kennedy wrote that the majority
of the Supreme Court was sufficiently concerned with the
constitution challenges the line item veto presented to declare the
act wholly unconstitutional, instead of relying on other
traditional and less sweeping ways of correcting acts of Congress.
In his view, “the Court’s decision sent a clear message of finality
for any future use of the line item veto.” Kennedy also noted that
while the majority relied on a strict interpretation or literal
textual reading of the Presentment Clause contained in Article I of
the United States Constitution, Justice Scalia, in his dissent,
“stray[ed] somewhat from his usual strict constructionist approach
... by stressing that the President’s act of cancellation would
only occur after satisfaction of the Presentment Clause.”
Steven F. Huefner wrote that "Although the
Presentment Clause analysis of the Line Item Veto Act has
superficial appeal, it ultimately does not withstand scrutiny,"
arguing that the Court should have relied on the nondelegation
doctrine in order to invalidate the Act, as it provided a superior
basis for such a decision. Huefner named two main implications of
the Court’s refusal to use the nondelegation doctrine. First, it
suggests that the Court seems unready or unwilling to alter the
existing interpretation of the nondelegation doctrine. Second, the
Court has shown that it is willing to rely upon alternative
rationales to achieve the same result "as would a more robust
nondelegation doctrine rationale". This approach is significant
because in theory, such a rationale could endanger previously
accepted delegations to the executive.
Roy E. Brownell II criticized the Clinton
administration for its exercise of the Line Item Veto Act, charging
that it should have restricted its cancellation powers only to
statutory provisions that remain in the realm of national security.
He argued that had the Clinton administration limited its use of
the Line Item Veto Act in this fashion, it would have ensured that
when the constitutionality of the Act was inevitably challenged,
the challenge would have been based on terms most favorable to the
Executive. Brownell suggested that a
test
case brought forth on the grounds of national security would
have likely acknowledged the existence of "
National Security Rescission",
"a narrow
statutory
construction limiting the area of presidential cancellation
power to within the field of national security. Such a
result...would have assured that the President maintained
cancellation authority over a sixth of the federal budget."
Steven G. Calabresi argued that although the Court
had denied this, the instant decision was really a "
Nondelegation doctrine case
masquerading as a
bicameralism and
presentment case." He also
suggested that this decision was "the blockbuster separation of
powers case of the
Rehnquist years."
Subsequent developments
Though the Supreme Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act in
1998, President
George W. Bush asked Congress to enact legislation that
would return the line item veto power to the Executive. First
announcing his intent to seek such legislation in his January 31,
2006
State of the Union
address, President Bush sent a legislative proposal
Legislative Line Item
Veto Act of 2006 to Congress on March 6, 2006, urging its
prompt passage. Senator
Bill Frist,
Senator
John McCain, and Republican Whip
Senator
Mitch McConnell jointly
introduced this proposal.
On that same day,
Joshua Bolten, the
Director of the
Office
of Management and Budget, gave a press conference on the
president’s line-item veto proposal. Bolten explained that the
proposed Act would give the President the ability to single out
“wasteful” spending and to put such spending on hold. While the
spending line-item is on hold, the President can send legislation
to Congress to rescind the particular line-item. The proposal would
then be considered in both houses within ten days on an up or down
basis, and could be passed by a
simple
majority. Additionally, such proposals could not be
filibustered.
When asked how this proposed legislation was different from the
1996 Line Item Veto Act that was found unconstitutional by the
United States Supreme Court, Bolten said that whereas the former
act granted unilateral authority to the Executive to disallow
specific spending line items, the new proposal would seek
Congressional approval of such line-item vetoes. Thus, in order for
the President to successfully rescind previously enacted spending,
a simple majority of Congress is required to agree to specific
legislation to that effect.
Though the current line-item veto proposal is much weaker than the
1996 version, it has nevertheless failed to find strong support in
Congress. Senator
Robert C.
Byrd of West Virginia
called it "an offensive slap at Congress,"
asserting that the legislation would enable the president to
intimidate individual members of Congress by targeting the projects
of his political opponents. He also complained that the
line-item veto as proposed would take away Congress’ constitutional
"
power of the purse" and give it
to the
Executive branch.
On June 8, 2006, Viet D.
Dinh, Professor of Law at Georgetown
University Law Center
, and Nathan A. Sales, John M. Olin Fellow at
Georgetown University Law Center testified by written statement
before the
House Committee
on the Budget on the constitutional issues in connection with
the proposed legislation. Dinh and Sales argued that the
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 satisfies the Constitution’s
Bicameralism and
Presentment Clause, and therefore avoids
the constitutional issues raised in the 1996 Act struck down by the
Supreme Court. They also stated that the proposed Act is consistent
with the basic principle that grants Congress broad discretion to
establish procedures to govern its internal operations.
The proposed Act was approved by the
House Budget
Committee on June 14, 2006 by a vote of 24-9. It was approved
in the full House on June 22. A similar bill was submitted in the
Senate, but failed to win approval. The Legislative Line Item Veto
Act has therefore not become law.
See also
Notes
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