Court Allows Clinton the Line-Item Veto
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The Supreme Court today cleared the way for the President to kill individual items of Federal spending in bills that he signs into law, but expressed no opinion on the constitutionality of such ”line-item vetoes.” The Court said it could not rule on the new Presidential power, granted by Congress in a law enacted last year, because there was not yet a genuine ”case or controversy.” It said the members of Congress who had challenged the President’s new power in court had no legal right to do so, because they had not suffered any personal injury from its use. President Clinton hailed the decision and described the line-item veto as a ”valuable tool for eliminating waste in the Federal budget.” He said he would use the power to attack special-interest provisions buried in big bills. Congress is now working on appropriations bills that will soon give the President many opportunities to do so. Lawmakers opposed to the line-item veto predicted that it would ultimately be declared unconstitutional, as a result of some future suit brought by plaintiffs found to have standing. Since the the dawn of the Republic, the President has been required to either accept or reject legislation in its entirety. But the 1996 law at issue, the Line-Item Veto Act, authorized him to cancel specific items in Federal spending and tax bills that he has already signed. He can rescind such items at any time within five days after signing the legislation. Five members of Congress and one former member challenged the new law, arguing that the line-item veto unconstitutionally shifted power over spending and taxes from Congress to the President, ”altering the legal and practical effect” of their votes. Using this device, they said, the President can unilaterally repeal selected provisions of a statute, in violation of the lawmaking procedure set forth in the Constitution. But in announcing the Court’s 7-to-2 decision from the bench today, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said, ”These members of Congress are not the right people to bring this suit.” Under Article III of the Constitution, the Chief Justice said, ”no Federal court can decide a case unless the people bringing the suit have standing” to sue. To satisfy this requirement, he said, plaintiffs must have a ”personal, concrete injury, a personal stake in the dispute.” More : query.nytimes.com |