House approves line-item veto for president
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press – 15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans put aside their usual antipathy toward President Barack Obama on Wednesday to give the president, and his successors, the line-item veto, a constitutionally questionable power over the purse that long has been sought by presidents of both parties.
A minority of Democrats joined in casting a 254-173 vote in favor of allowing the president to pick out specific items in spending bills for elimination. Currently, the chief executive must sign or veto spending bills in their entirety.
The main opposition came from members of the Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for putting together the annual spending bills. They argued that the bill upsets the constitutional separation of powers balance in favor of the executive branch, and that recent efforts to curtail so-called earmarks in spending bills make the line-item veto unnecessary.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain.
more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3a_PYxsGYMH0TOc5Q1w09TLC_SA?docId=f418e62f5e4847629192e70ccdb4be19
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rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)They want to turn the United States in to a corporation and one surefire way to do it, is for the people's representatives to abdicate their responsibilities and power to a dominating CEO/President.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)of politicans in the right wing leaning, authoritarian quadrant of the political spectrum vs those closer to the libertarian point of view, Obama has given the authoritarians no reason for concern, he's one of them.
The Republicans know that even if Obama were to win reelection, the corporate media will still continue to enable and depict poltiicians in the right wing, authoritarian quadrant as being the "moderates," "centrists," "mainstream" to power whether it be in the White House or the Congress.
Even if Obama were to surprise them and deviate from authoritarianism, the long term dynamic would be set to correct itself.
The peoples' representatives in Congress would be weakened and subjugated to a central figure; the same one which can on his/her authority alone have any American killed or imprisoned indefinitely as Donald Trump would say, that American is fired.
In short, another major step toward corporate supremacy over the people and "We the people's" government.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)All the more reason to work hard to put a Dem Congress in place. The Dems should cede no state and work hard in all of them.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
rurallib
(62,423 posts)that if this were passed, what the hell would the House do? Seems like they gave all their power away.
He was so stunned he couldn't answer.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)It erodes checks and balances. Was he part of this vote?
rurallib
(62,423 posts)the former rep was Jim Leach who achieved this kind of mythical status as a "reasonable Republican." He was no more than any other Republican.
His lasting legacy is as the "Leach" in "Gramm-Leach-Bliley" bill that repealed Glass-Stegall
I started asking him about the budget in 2004 as the Bush deficits mounted and he would never answer me.
At one of his town halls he made this incredible statement about how great line item veto would be. I interrupted and said "If the President controls the budget, what does congress do?" He was stunned, mumbled a bit and asked for other questions.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)The look on his face must have been priceless.
I hope one day we can put his little namesake bill into the dustbin of history as a 'failed experiment'.
rurallib
(62,423 posts)I found out he doesn't like to be questioned and was usually ill-prepared.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)
zbdent
(35,392 posts)seems like the repugs like to put this on the bill in a Presidential election year when they think they can get the President away from a Dem.
When it passed (1996), and Clinton was re-elected, the SCOTUS found the legislation "unconstitutional" ...
Wouldn't surprise me if the SCOTUS would find it "unconstitutional" again ... if Obama is re-elected.
Don't have any history on whether or not the SCOTUS would find it unconstitutional if a Repug won ...
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)Personally, I think that Kennedy would join the liberal wing, if, in fact, this thing ever got to the SC.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)6-3, Breyer dissented, Kennedy concurred.
Just google the name of the decision or "line item veto supreme court" to pull up quite a bit of information.
mantis49
(814 posts)Then, I thought, maybe I was imagining things and it hadn't been tried before! Thanks for confirming it for me.
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)Which may change, but that's what I read last.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,219 posts)
kenfrequed
(7,865 posts)The Senate will vote this down. I don't care who is president, the line item veto is a massive transfer of power from the legislature to the executive.
On a tactical level it also destroys any impetus for compromise within a legislative body as it means that any concessions and compromises reached will merely be crossed off by the president of one party or another.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)As long as the legislation is clear that the President can veto individual line item(s) to make clear the portions with which he/she disagree, I can support it. But it must be understood that the legislation, so amended, must go back to the House and Senate for approval or for an override of the items so vetoed.
I do not want a unitary executive. Congressional earmarks are a mess but then we the electorate need to do a better job in who we vote for.
But we cannot let the President modify the legislation passed by Congress by striking out items that are from his/her perspective undesirable and then signing the bill into law. The amended legislation must be re-submitted and approved by Congress.
24601
(3,962 posts)by mere legislation will not hold up in court.
Most governors have this power - along with the requirement to balance the budget. The power applies only to budget line items, not other types of legislation.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Senate does not pass this. I think they - rethugs are trying to set him up as the person who veotoed it. A political ploy.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)jody
(26,624 posts)
onehandle
(51,122 posts)...in 2016.
Bank on it.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Orrex
(63,215 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)
Well played.
stockholmer
(3,751 posts)Tricky Dick Nixon is doing a jig to the devil's viola somewhere.
emilyg
(22,742 posts)tech_smythe
(190 posts)they passed line-item when they expected clinton to loose re-election
but didn't the supreme court already rule that a line-item veto was unconstitutional?
zbdent
(35,392 posts)
nilram
(2,888 posts)So its really that you repeated (in post #17, at 2:53) what tech_smyth said in reply #16 at 2:51.
zbdent
(35,392 posts)nilram
(2,888 posts)
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)This way, if the House load bills that have to pass---like military funding---with pork(which they have to do, this being an election year) Obama will be the one who is forced to either veto it (alienating voters) or sign it----at which point it becomes his pork and the Congressman who wrote it was just doing his job for his constituents while the GOP House as a whole can claim that it is trying to cut government spending but Obama will not let them.
For instance, military says a certain bomber is unneeded. House member for that district---say, in a purple state like Ohio---wants it built. Obama can either veto the bomber--and lose votes in a purple state. Or he lets the bill through, at which point the House member wins easy re-election.
This strategy depends upon the GOP having lots of SuperPac money to ran wall to wall ads that say something along the lines of "You lost your job at Boeing because Obama cut spending for the ___bomber." In case he does not veto the unnecessary spending, the Super Pacs will run "Obama authorized money for a bomber that the Pentagon said it does not need" in other districts hit hard by the economy.
Solution to this problem: Senate should kill the line item veto now---and then bring it up against next year after Obama is re-elected.
Scruffy1
(3,256 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)and last time I looked the executive branch already has too much power.
caraher
(6,278 posts)We already have "war powers" rules that, while maintaining some tiny fig leaf of retroactive accountability, essentially cede to the President the ability to wage undeclared wars. And now they want to let the President have the power to pick away at spending bills?
Note that this is a one-way power - its use only reduces spending. If you're looking to pull a Grover Norquist, with a RW president in the White House this is pretty much a license to perform the metaphorical drowning Norquist championed.
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)This is for the new Republican President who can destroy the entire budget without taking down the entire Party. True, he may end up being a 4 year President...but he'll be paid handsomely for doing the wet work on the bottom 90%.
NMDemDist2
(49,313 posts)jody
(26,624 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)cstanleytech
(26,293 posts)Remember the republicans are very for this type of thing and have been for awhile because they could and would use it to gut funding for social programs.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)Than the one Congress passed in about 1995 that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional? This just looks like the House wasting more time on meaningless legislation that will go nowhere.
former9thward
(32,020 posts)Any thing the President lines out goes back to Congress for an up or down vote. That provision was not in the 90s version and a lack of a second vote is what the SC said was unconstitutional.
NYC Liberal
(20,136 posts)usrname
(398 posts)The congress is responsible for crafting a funding bill. If they want line-item, then separate the funding into different bills and pass them through the house and senate separately.
Then, the president can either sign or veto the bill separately.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)If they give this power up are they not subverting the constitution, Rewriting the constitution or at least violating their oath to uphold the constitution?
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The problem is Bryer, Scalia and O'Connor dissented on the ground the actual bill was NOT a line item veto, but a authorization by Congress to the President to "Cancel" previously passed spending items. STEVENS, REHNQUIST, KENNEDY, SOUTER, THOMAS, and GINSBURG and said the act of doing such cancellation was in effect a line item veto and thus unconstitutional. They basically said, if it walks like a Duck, Quacks like a Duck, Swims like a Duck, Flies like a Duck it is a DUCK. Breyer, Scalia and O'Connor said, no it is an independent grant of authority by Congress to the President to "cancel"s spending NOT a line item veto of that Spending. Thus how it Walks, Quacks, Swims, and Flies is unimportant as long as it is AUTHORIZED by Congress.
More on the case that decided the issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Item_Veto_Act_of_1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._City_of_New_York
Here is the actual Case:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=97-1374
The opinion was written by Justice STEVENS, joined by REHNQUIST, KENNEDY, SOUTER, THOMAS, and GINSBURG
KENNEDY , J., filed a concurring opinion (Please note Kennedy Opinion was more a rebuttal to Breyer's dissent then anything else).
SCALIA , J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which O'CONNOR, and BREYER, joined as to Part III.
BREYER , J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which O'CONNOR and SCALIA , JJ., joined as to Part III.
Breyer's Part III, the part Scalia and O'Connor agreed with him on:
III
I agree with the Court that the New York appellees have standing to challenge the President's cancellation of §4722(c) of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 as an "item of new direct spending." See ante , at 11-12. The tax liability they will incur under New York law is a concrete and particularized injury, fairly traceable to the President's action, and avoided if that action is undone. Unlike the Court, however, I do not believe that Executive cancellation of this item of direct spending violates the Presentment Clause.
The Presentment Clause requires, in relevant part, that "[e]very Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it," U. S. Const., Art. I, §7, cl. 2. There is no question that enactment of the Balanced Budget Act complied with these requirements: the House and Senate passed the bill, and the President signed it into law. It was only after the requirements of the Presentment Clause had been satisfied that the President exercised his authority under the Line Item Veto Act to cancel the spending item. Thus, the Court's problem with the Act is not that it authorizes the President to veto parts of a bill and sign others into law, but rather that it authorizes him to "cancel"-prevent from "having legal force or effect"-certain parts of duly enacted statutes.
Article I, §7 of the Constitution obviously prevents the President from cancelling a law that Congress has not authorized him to cancel. Such action cannot possibly be considered part of his execution of the law, and if it is legislative action, as the Court observes, " 'repeal of statutes, no less than enactment, must conform with Art. I.' " Ante , at 19, quoting from INS v. Chadha , 462 U.S. 919, 954 (1983). But that is not this case. It was certainly arguable, as an original matter, that Art. I, §7 also prevents the President from cancelling a law which itself authorizes the President to cancel it. But as the Court acknowledges, that argument has long since been made and rejected. In 1809, Congress passed a law authorizing the President to cancel trade restrictions against Great Britain and France if either revoked edicts directed at the United States. Act of Mar. 1, 1809, §11, 2 Stat. 528. Joseph Story regarded the conferral of that authority as entirely unremarkable in The Orono , 18 F. Cas. 830 (No. 10,585) (CCD Mass. 1812). The Tariff Act of 1890 authorized the President to "suspend, by proclamation to that effect" certain of its provisions if he determined that other countries were imposing "reciprocally unequal and unreasonable" duties. Act of Oct. 1, 1890, §3, 26 Stat. 612. This Court upheld the constitutionality of that Act in Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892), reciting the history since 1798 of statutes conferring upon the President the power to, inter alia , "discontinue the prohibitions and restraints hereby enacted and declared," id., at 684, "suspend the operation of the aforesaid act," id., at 685, and "declare the provisions of this act to be inoperative," id., at 688.
As much as the Court goes on about Art. I, §7, therefore, that provision does not demand the result the Court reaches. It no more categorically prohibits the Executive reduction of congressional dispositions in the course of implementing statutes that authorize such reduction, than it categorically prohibits the Executive augmentation of congressional dispositions in the course of implementing statutes that authorize such augmentation-generally known as substantive rulemaking. There are, to be sure, limits upon the former just as there are limits upon the latter-and I am prepared to acknowledge that the limits upon the former may be much more severe. Those limits are established, however, not by some categorical prohibition of Art. I, §7, which our cases conclusively disprove, but by what has come to be known as the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority: When authorized Executive reduction or augmentation is allowed to go too far, it usurps the nondelegable function of Congress and violates the separation of powers. It is this doctrine, and not the Presentment Clause, that was discussed in the Field opinion, and it is this doctrine, and not the Presentment Clause, that is the issue presented by the statute before us here. That is why the Court is correct to distinguish prior authorizations of Executive cancellation, such as the one involved in Field , on the ground that they were contingent upon an Executive finding of fact, and on the ground that they related to the field of foreign affairs, an area where the President has a special "degree of discretion and freedom," ante , at 27 (citation omitted). These distinctions have nothing to do with whether the details of Art. I, §7 have been complied with, but everything to do with whether the authorizations went too far by transferring to the Executive a degree of political, law-making power that our traditions demand be retained by the Legislative Branch.
I turn, then, to the crux of the matter: whether Congress's authorizing the President to cancel an item of spending gives him a power that our history and traditions show must reside exclusively in the Legislative Branch. I may note, to begin with, that the Line Item Veto Act is not the first statute to authorize the President to "cancel" spending items. In Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714 (1986), we addressed the constitutionality of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, 2 U.S.C. § 901 et seq. (1982 ed., Supp. III), which required the President, if the federal budget deficit exceeded a certain amount, to issue a "sequestration" order mandating spending reductions specified by the Comptroller General. §902. The effect of sequestration was that "amounts sequestered . . . shall be permanently cancelled ," §902(a)(4) (emphasis added). We held that the Act was unconstitutional, not because it impermissibly gave the Executive legislative power, but because it gave the Comptroller General, an officer of the Legislative Branch over whom Congress retained removal power, "the ultimate authority to determine the budget cuts to be made," 478 U.S., at 733 , "functions . . . plainly entailing execution of the law in constitutional terms ." Id., at 732-733 (emphasis added). The President's discretion under the Line Item Veto Act is certainly broader than the Comptroller General's discretion was under the 1985 Act, but it is no broader than the discretion traditionally granted the President in his execution of spending laws.
Insofar as the degree of political, "law-making" power conferred upon the Executive is concerned, there is not a dime's worth of difference between Congress's authorizing the President to cancel a spending item, and Congress's authorizing money to be spent on a particular item at the President's discretion. And the latter has been done since the Founding of the Nation. From 1789-1791, the First Congress made lump-sum appropriations for the entire Government-"sum[s] not exceeding" specified amounts for broad purposes. Act of Sept. 29, 1789, ch. 23, §1, 1 Stat. 95; Act of Mar. 26, 1790, ch. 4, §1, 1 Stat. 104; Act of Feb. 11, 1791, ch. 6, 1 Stat. 190. From a very early date Congress also made permissive individual appropriations, leaving the decision whether to spend the money to the President's unfettered discretion. In 1803, it appropriated $50,000 for the President to build "not exceeding fifteen gun boats, to be armed, manned and fitted out, and employed for such purposes as in his opinion the public service may require," Act of Feb. 28, 1803, ch. 11, 4 §3, 2 Stat. 206. President Jefferson reported that "[t]he sum of fifty thousand dollars appropriated by Congress for providing gun boats remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary," 13 Annals of Cong. 14 (1803). Examples of appropriations committed to the discretion of the President abound in our history. During the Civil War, an Act appropriated over $76 million to be divided among various items "as the exigencies of the service may require," Act of Feb. 25, 1862, ch. 32, 12 Stat. 344-345. During the Great Depression, Congress appropriated $950 million "for such projects and/or purposes and under such rules and regulations as the President in his discretion may prescribe," Act of Feb. 15, 1934, ch. 13, 48 Stat. 351, and $4 billion for general classes of projects, the money to be spent "in the discretion and under the direction of the President," Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 115. The constitutionality of such appropriations has never seriously been questioned. Rather, "[t]hat Congress has wide discretion in the matter of prescribing details of expenditures for which it appropriates must, of course, be plain. Appropriations and other acts of Congress are replete with instances of general appropriations of large amounts, to be allotted and expended as directed by designated government agencies." Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U.S. 308, 321 -322 (1937).
Certain Presidents have claimed Executive authority to withhold appropriated funds even absent an express conferral of discretion to do so. In 1876, for example, President Grant reported to Congress that he would not spend money appropriated for certain harbor and river improvements, see Act of Aug. 14, 1876, ch. 267, 19 Stat. 132, because "under no circumstances [would he] allow expenditures upon works not clearly national," and in his view, the appropriations were for "works of purely private or local interest, in no sense national," 4 Cong. Rec. 5628. President Franklin D. Roosevelt impounded funds appropriated for a flood control reservoir and levee in Oklahoma. See Act of Aug. 18, 1941, ch. 377, 55 Stat. 638, 645; Hearings on S. 373 before the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Impoundment of Funds of the Committee on Government Operations and the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 848-849 (1973). President Truman ordered the impoundment of hundreds of millions of dollars that had been appropriated for military aircraft. See Act of Oct. 29, 1949, ch. 787, 63 Stat. 987, 1013; Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Harry S. Truman, 1949, pp. 538-539 (W. Reid ed. 1964). President Nixon, the Mahatma Ghandi of all impounders, asserted at a press conference in 1973 that his "constitutional right" to impound appropriated funds was "absolutely clear." The President's News Conference of Jan. 31, 1973, 9 Weekly Comp. of Pres. Doc. 109-110 (1973). Our decision two years later in Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35 (1975), proved him wrong, but it implicitly confirmed that Congress may confer discretion upon the executive to withhold appropriated funds, even funds appropriated for a specific purpose. The statute at issue in Train authorized spending "not to exceed" specified sums for certain projects, and directed that such "[s]ums authorized to be appropriated . . . shall be allotted" by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, 33 U. S. C. §§1285, 1287 (1970 ed., Supp. III). Upon enactment of this statute, the President directed the Administrator to allot no more than a certain part of the amount authorized. 420 U.S., at 40 . This Court held, as a matter of statutory interpretation, that the statute did not grant the Executive discretion to withhold the funds, but required allotment of the full amount authorized. Id., at 44-47.
The short of the matter is this: Had the Line Item Veto Act authorized the President to "decline to spend" any item of spending contained in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, there is not the slightest doubt that authorization would have been constitutional. What the Line Item Veto Act does instead-authorizing the President to "cancel" an item of spending-is technically different. But the technical difference does not relate to the technicalities of the Presentment Clause, which have been fully complied with; and the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation, which is at issue here, is preeminently not a doctrine of technicalities. The title of the Line Item Veto Act, which was perhaps designed to simplify for public comprehension, or perhaps merely to comply with the terms of a campaign pledge, has succeeded in faking out the Supreme Court. The President's action it authorizes in fact is not a lineitem veto and thus does not offend Art. I, §7; and insofar as the substance of that action is concerned, it is no different from what Congress has permitted the President to do since the formation of the Union.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)he's a black man.
Evasporque
(2,133 posts)The House has no self control and every joker repuke wants pork for home. Rather than change how the President does his job, Congress needs to clean itself up and stop adding crap to bills for various reasons and stick to the issue addressed by the bill....
no more earmarks, riders, poison pills and pork....
RUMMYisFROSTED
(30,749 posts)'Nuff said.
Highway61
(2,568 posts)and this is not a good thing in the long run OMHO.
