Try our new search engine

Line-Item Veto Could Be Potent Weapon Against Pork

But the fate of the president's new budget authority rests with the Supreme Court

By Craig Staats/AllPolitics

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 9) -- When Congress approved the line-item veto in March 1996, one of the most compelling arguments was that it could be an effective tool against pork-barrel spending.

With the ability to pencil out specific projects in larger spending bills, the president would finally have the authority, supporters argued, to kill wasteful, unnecessary and just plain weird items in the federal budget, like an international fund for Ireland that, in part, funded golf videos and pony-trekking centers.

When President Bill Clinton signed the line-item veto law, he said for years presidents from both parties "have pounded this very desk in frustration at having to sign necessary legislation that contains special-interest boondoggles, tax loopholes and pure pork. The line-item veto will give us a chance to change that."

But whether Clinton actually gets to wield this pork-busting authority is still an open question. The fate of the line-item veto rests with the Supreme Court, which in late May heard arguments in a case brought by members of Congress who think the measure unconstitutional.

It's usually risky to read too much into the justices' questions during oral arguments. But some of them wondered out loud whether lawmakers on the losing side had standing to sue, or whether someone affected by an actual exercise of the line-item veto would have to claim an injury for the case to move forward. (So far, Clinton has yet to exercise the new power, because no spending bills have reached him yet.)

"Practically, it is a majority of Congress that has caused this injury, not the president," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said during oral arguments. "They are only injured by their own folly."

The high court has agreed to rule on a fast-track basis, meaning a decision is expected by July. But justices may not have to address the underlying constitutional issue of the transfer of power from the legislative to executive branch, if justices decide that lawmakers don't have standing to challenge the new law.

In early April, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that the line-item veto law violates the Constitution's separation of powers, which gives Congress the power to tax and spend.

"Where the president signs a bill but then purports to cancel parts of it, he exceeds his constitutional authority and prevents both houses of Congress from participating in the exercise of lawmaking authority," Jackson wrote. "Never before has Congress attempted to give away the power to shape the content of a statute of the United States, as the Act purports to do ... Congress has turned the constitutional division of responsibilities for legislating on its head."

The Supreme Court case is Raines vs. Byrd, 96-1671.