Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 464.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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

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

419

Syllabus

prohibition. The Article I procedures governing statutory enactment
were the product of the great debates and compromises that produced
the Constitution itself. Familiar historical materials provide abundant
support for the conclusion that the power to enact statutes may only
“be exercised in accord with a single, ﬁnely wrought and exhaustively
considered, procedure.” Chadha, 462 U. S., at 951. What has emerged
in the present cases, however, are not the product of the “ﬁnely
wrought” procedure that the Framers designed, but truncated versions
of two bills that passed both Houses. Pp. 436–441.

(b) The Court rejects two related Government arguments. First,
the contention that the cancellations were merely exercises of the Presi-
dent’s discretionary authority under the Balanced Budget Act and the
Taxpayer Relief Act, read in light of the previously enacted Line Item
Veto Act, is unpersuasive. Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649, 693, on which
the Government relies, suggests critical differences between this cancel-
lation power and the President’s statutory power to suspend import
duty exemptions that was there upheld: such suspension was contingent
on a condition that did not predate its statute, the duty to suspend was
absolute once the President determined the contingency had arisen, and
In contrast, the Act at
the suspension executed congressional policy.
issue authorizes the President himself to effect the repeal of laws, for
his own policy reasons, without observing Article I, § 7, procedures.
Second, the contention that the cancellation authority is no greater than
the President’s traditional statutory authority to decline to spend appro-
priated funds or to implement speciﬁed tax measures fails because this
Act, unlike the earlier laws, gives the President the unilateral power to
change the text of duly enacted statutes. Pp. 442–447.

(c) The profound importance of these cases makes it appropriate to
emphasize three points. First, the Court expresses no opinion about
the wisdom of the Act’s procedures and does not lightly conclude that
the actions of the Congress that passed it, and the President who signed
it into law, were unconstitutional. The Court has, however, twice had
full argument and brieﬁng on the question and has concluded that its
duty is clear. Second, having concluded that the Act’s cancellation pro-
visions violate Article I, § 7, the Court ﬁnds it unnecessary to consider
the District Court’s alternative holding that the Act impermissibly dis-
rupts the balance of powers among the three branches of Government.
Third, this decision rests on the narrow ground that the Act’s proce-
If this Act were valid, it
dures are not authorized by the Constitution.
would authorize the President to create a law whose text was not voted
on by either House or presented to the President for signature. That
may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may
If there is to be a new proce-
“become a law” pursuant to Article I, § 7.