19981776 Club
Supreme Court strikes down the line-item veto, 6-3; Clinton loses a power no president before him had held
The Presentment Clause forbids the president from unilaterally excising provisions from enacted law, the Court rules, voiding cuts to a New York liability exemption and a Snake River potato-farmer tax break.
For two years, the Line Item Veto Act had given President Clinton something no president before him had held: the power to surgically excise specific provisions from legislation Congress had already passed and sent to his desk. He had used it twice — once to cancel a liability exemption benefiting New York City in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and once to eliminate a tax break for Snake River potato farmers in the Taxpayer Relief Act. On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Clinton v. City of New York that the Act violated the Presentment Clause of the Constitution, because allowing the President to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of enacted statutes bypassed the process the Framers had specifically prescribed…
