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Clinton v. City of New York (1998)

Definition

A Supreme Court case that struck down the Line Item Veto Act because it gave the executive the unilateral authority to amend a law without having to go through the legislative process. The Line Item Veto Act, intended by Congress to limit government spending, allowed the President to veto a single appropriation or tax benefit within a large appropriation or tax bill without having to veto the entire bill. The Supreme Court ruled this Act to be unconstitutional because it violated the Presentment Clause of the Constitution (which delineated a process by which a piece of legislation passed through both houses of Congress in its entirety before being signed or vetoed in its entirety by the President). By giving the President the discretion to accept or reject parts of the bill, the Act would have allowed the President to act contrary to Congressional purpose by amending the laws that were presented to him.

See Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998) at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/97-1374.ZO.html

Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary

A U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court declared the line item veto unconstitutional because it gave the executive a legislative function.

Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary.

August 19, 2010, 5:27 pm

 

“Qwest relies heavily upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Clinton v. City of New York (1998) to argue that Qwest ‘suffered actual injury sufficient to confer standing—and certainly a sufficient likelihood of economic injury.’ Qwest’s reliance upon Clinton is misplaced, however, because Clinton is factually distinguishable.

“Clinton stands for the proposition that a party has standing to challenge the legality of a government action (in Clinton, a presidential line item veto) where that action revives ‘a substantial contingent liability [which] immediately and directly affects the borrowing power, financial strength, and fiscal planning of the potential obligor’ (in Clinton, a tax liability in excess of two billion dollars)….Qwest’s alleged injury differs from those of the plaintiffs’ in Clinton in one critical respect: while the First Report and Order may have imposed upon Qwest a contingent liability when the Commission issued the order in 1996, any such liability cannot be contingent today.”

J. Kelly, Qwest Communications, International, Inc. v. F.C.C., 240 F.3d 886, 891-892 (10th Cir. 2001).

Qwest Communications, International, Inc. v. F.C.C. (2001)