High Court Hears Line-Item Veto Arguments
A check on waste or too much power? Supreme Court will decide
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WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 27) -- In a dispute with potentially historic consequences, the Clinton Administration Monday asked the Supreme Court to uphold Congress' line-item veto legislation against a challenge that it upsets the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches.
The 1996 line-item veto law, which permits the president to pencil out specific spending items approved by the Congress, does not violate the separation of powers between Congress and the president, Solicitor General Seth Waxman told the justices.
"This is not an example of a president repealing a provision of
a law that Congress has enacted ... but exercising a discretionary
authority that Congress has given him," Waxman said.
But judging from some of the justices' comments and questions, the line-item veto's future is far from certain.
"That sounds to me like legislating, no matter what legal
dressing you want to give to it," said Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg.
Louis Cohen, a lawyer for an Idaho potato growers' group that
challenged the law, said the effect of using the line-item veto is to produce "a truncated statute that Congress didn't pass."
The high court is expected to rule by late June or early July, although it once again could base its ruling on narrower grounds that leave the larger constitutional issues unresolved.
Waxman argued the potato growers and New York City, which
also challenged the law, lacked legal standing because they were
not directly affected by vetoes carried out last year by President Bill Clinton.
Last June, the justices ruled that six members of Congress who
challenged the veto law also lacked standing to sue.
Opponents charge the law tips
the constitutional balance of power toward the presidency and away
from Congress. Supporters of the law argue it's merely a check on
wasteful spending.
Clinton exercised the veto 82 times last year before a
federal judge in Washington ruled the law unconstitutional in
February. Once a bill becomes law, the president's sole duty is to
carry it out, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan said.
The line-item veto law lets the president sign a bill and within
five days go back to reject specific spending items or tax breaks in
it. Congress can then reinstate the item by passing a separate
bill.
In favor
Nearly every president in the past century has sought the line-item
veto as a tool for controlling "pork barrel" programs added by
lawmakers. Most governors have similar authority over state
spending.
Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on
him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. "From the nature of
the Constitution," George Washington said, "I must approve all the
parts of a bill, or reject it in toto."
"The Line-Item Veto Act is hardly revolutionary," Waxman said in court papers. "The act simply gives the president a
measure of discretion over the expenditure of appropriated funds."
Opposed
New York City's lawyers called the line-item veto a "too-clever
device" that seeks to give the president the authority to repeal
laws by himself.
Under the Constitution, "cancellation is an action that only
Congress has the power ... to take," the city's attorneys said in
court briefs.
New York City sued to restore a provision that would have let the
city and New York state raise taxes on hospitals and use the money
to attract federal Medicaid payments.
The Snake River Potato Growers sued over Clinton's veto of a tax
measure that would have allowed agricultural processors to defer
capital gains taxes when they sell such facilities to farmers'
cooperatives.
The case is Clinton vs. City of New York, 97-1374.
CNN's Sean Carr and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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