Constitutional Law

Line-Item Veto, Part Deux

Strange bedfellows Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) are in league again. This time, the agenda is to give President Obama additional authority over Congress.

You read that correctly. McCain is teaming up with Feingold to enhance the executive’s authority to delete earmarks from spending bills by way of a line-item veto. A line-item veto would give the president authority to strike lines from legislation passed by Congress, rather than having to veto the whole bill.

The line-item veto was last exercised by President Clinton under Congress’s Line Item Veto Act. That culminated in Clinton v. The City of New York, a 1998 Supreme Court decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens. Speaking for a six-justice majority, Justice Stevens wrote, “If there is to be a new procedure in which the president will play a different role in determining the text of what may become a law, such change must come not by legislation but through the amendment procedures.”

Feingold and McCain are working on legislation that they hope would avoid the constitutional pitfalls of Congress’s previous effort. While falling short of constituting an amendment, as urged by Justice Stevens in 1998, Feingold’s office said that the legislation would bear a sunset provision giving “Congress the ability to review this legislation and decide whether to renew it” in 2014.

When recently asked about the possibility of Obama exercising a line-item veto, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered, “Well, I can assure you he’d love to take that for a test drive.” Gibbs demurred when asked whether Obama might veto the entire pork-laden omnibus spending bill. However, McCain says that he will call for a veto if Congress passes the legislation in its current form.

Obama would be only the second president in U.S. history to exercise the line-item veto after Clinton. President Bush pushed for the authority in 2006, but was rebuffed.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on February 26, 2009 (boomark / email).