Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 527.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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482

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Breyer, J., dissenting

B

The Act does not undermine what this Court has often
described as the principal function of the separation of pow-
ers, which is to maintain the tripartite structure of the Fed-
eral Government—and thereby protect individual liberty—
by providing a “safeguard against the encroachment or
aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other.”
Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 122 (1976) (per curiam); Mis-
tretta v. United States, supra, at 380–382. See The Federal-
ist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison) (separation
of powers confers on each branch the means “to resist en-
croachments of the others”); 1 Davis, supra, § 1.09, at 68
(“The danger is not blended power[;] [t]he danger is un-
checked power”); see also, e. g., Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S.
714 (1986) (invalidating congressional intrusion on Executive
Branch); Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe
Line Co., 458 U. S. 50 (1982) (Congress may not give away
Article III “judicial” power to an Article I judge); Myers
v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926) (Congress cannot limit
President’s power to remove Executive Branch ofﬁcial).

In contrast to these cases, one cannot say that the Act
“encroaches” upon Congress’ power, when Congress retained
the power to insert, by simple majority, into any future ap-
propriations bill, into any section of any such bill, or into any
phrase of any section, a provision that says the Act will not
apply. See 2 U. S. C. § 691f(c)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. II); Raines
v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 824 (1997) (Congress can “exempt a
given appropriations bill (or a given provision in an appropri-
ations bill) from the Act”). Congress also retained the
power to “disapprov[e],” and thereby reinstate, any of the
President’s cancellations. See 2 U. S. C. § 691b(a). And it
is Congress that drafts and enacts the appropriations stat-
utes that are subject to the Act in the ﬁrst place—and
thereby deﬁnes the outer limits of the President’s cancella-
tion authority. Thus this Act is not the sort of delegation
“without . . . sufﬁcient check” that concerns Justice Ken-