Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 472.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

[09-11-00 13:25:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

427

Opinion of the Court

owner of an Idaho potato processor that would have qualiﬁed
for the tax beneﬁt under the pending legislation, but these
negotiations terminated when the President canceled § 968.
Snake River is currently considering the possible purchase
of other processing facilities in Idaho if the President’s can-
cellation is reversed. Based on these facts, the District
Court concluded that the Snake River plaintiffs were injured
by the President’s cancellation of § 968, as they “lost the ben-
eﬁt of being on equal footing with their competitors and will
likely have to pay more to purchase processing facilities now
that the sellers will not [be] able to take advantage of section
968’s tax breaks.”

Id., at 177.

On the merits, the District Court held that the cancella-
tions did not conform to the constitutionally mandated proce-
dures for the enactment or repeal of laws in two respects.
First, the laws that resulted after the cancellations “were
different from those consented to by both Houses of Con-
Id., at 178.11 Moreover, the President violated
gress.”
Article I “when he unilaterally canceled provisions of duly
Id., at 179.12 As a separate basis for
enacted statutes.”

11 As the District Court explained: “These laws reﬂected the best judg-
ment of both Houses. The laws that resulted after the President’s line
item veto were different from those consented to by both Houses of Con-
gress. There is no way of knowing whether these laws, in their truncated
form, would have received the requisite support from both the House and
the Senate. Because the laws that emerged after the Line Item Veto are
not the same laws that proceeded through the legislative process, as re-
quired, the resulting laws are not valid.”

985 F. Supp., at 178–179.

12 “Unilateral action by any single participant in the law-making process
is precisely what the Bicameralism and Presentment Clauses were de-
signed to prevent. Once a bill becomes law, it can only be repealed or
amended through another, independent legislative enactment, which itself
must conform with the requirements of Article I. Any rescissions must
be agreed upon by a majority of both Houses of Congress. The President
cannot single-handedly revise the work of the other two participants in
the lawmaking process, as he did here when he vetoed certain provisions
of these statutes.”

Ibid.