Clinton v. City of New York

Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held, 6–3, that the line-item veto , as implemented 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 . Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the six-justice majority that the line-item veto gave the President power over legislation unintended by the Constitution, and was therefore a violation of the separation of powers between the two branches.

Contents

• 1 Background of the case

  • 1.1 Political circumstances

  • 1.2 Initial litigation

• 2 Supreme Court's decision

  • 2.1 Kennedy's concurrence

  • 2.2 Breyer's dissent

  • 2.3 Scalia's partial concurrence and partial dissent

• 3 Critical response

• 4 Subsequent developments

• 5 See also

• 6 Notes

• 7 External links

Background of the case

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The Line Item Veto Act 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

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The 1994 midterm elections signaled an upheaval in American politics known as the Republican Revolution , with the Republican Party taking 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 President Clinton supported.

Initial litigation

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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 in _Raines v. Byrd _, 521 U.S. 811 (1997). 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.

Supreme Court's decision

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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.

Kennedy's concurrence

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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 implicit

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