President Promises High Court Appeal to Save Line-Item Veto

President Clinton vowed Friday to challenge a legal ruling that struck down his far-reaching authority to veto individual items in spending bills, declaring that “we ought to give the Supreme Court [justices] a chance to have their say on it.”

“I hope very much we can sustain it,” Clinton said of the line-item-veto power he was granted by Congress last year. “We have to appeal it.”

Clinton’s comments, underscoring the line-item veto’s deep significance to the White House and Congress, came one day after a U.S district judge ruled the new law unconstitutional.

Line-item-veto power over particular elements in a spending package was intended to act as a forceful new check on government spending. At the same time, it represented an extraordinary new power lever for a president over the Congress, during budget negotiations and when a spending bill reaches the Oval Office

Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson declared in a 37-page ruling that the new law turned the constitutional doctrine of division of powers “on its head” by granting the White House excessive influence over spending. The suit was brought by five Democratic members of Congress, led by Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, and one former Republican lawmaker.

“I am very pleased with the court’s decision, which I believe to be a great victory for the American people and our Constitution,” Byrd said in a statement.

But others said they fear that the legal ruling could hurt efforts to balance the federal budget, a goal shared--at least in broad principle--by Clinton and Republican congressional leaders. Indeed, the line-item veto is among the few elements of the conservative Republican agenda that the president has endorsed enthusiastically.

“I think it will be more difficult,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said of efforts to cut spending and balance the budget. “It’s going to be the loss of a tool for both the presidency and the Congress. . . . I think it’s a sad loss.”

In his remarks Friday, Clinton made clear his unhappiness with the decision to overturn the law, which took effect Jan. 1. “I was disappointed, . . .” he told reporters before addressing a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors here. “I think the line-item veto is very important in helping to preserve the integrity of federal spending.”

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Presidents always have had the power to reject entire spending packages and other bills passed by Congress. But until passage of the line-item veto, presidents had never had the authority to pick and choose among elements within a spending package. The struck-down law also would have allowed presidents to veto narrowly targeted tax breaks covering 100 or fewer people, as well as new or expanded mandatory spending programs, such as Medicare or veterans benefits.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Clinton does not doubt the line-item-veto law’s legality. “The president firmly believes it is constitutional,” McCurry said. “So did a majority of the United States Congress, the elected representatives of our people under our Constitution.”

The law provided for an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court, which the administration said it will pursue. Acting Solicitor Gen. Walter Dellinger also will request that the high court hear oral arguments as early as June, McCurry told reporters.

Clinton, as well as his Republican predecessors, has sought the line-item veto as a way to block unnecessary “pork barrel” appropriations, special-interest tax breaks and other expenses buried in the fine print of voluminous and costly spending bills. Yet even as the line-item veto commanded the approval of a majority of Congress last year, it sparked criticism as an inappropriate expansion of executive power.

“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 law-making 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 judge said.

But, Jackson added, the issue “undoubtedly” will finally be resolved in the Supreme Court.