Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 487.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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442

CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of the Court

V

The Government advances two related arguments to sup-
port its position that despite the unambiguous provisions of
the Act, cancellations do not amend or repeal properly
enacted statutes in violation of the Presentment Clause.
First, relying primarily on Field v. Clark, 143 U. S. 649
(1892), the Government contends that the cancellations were
merely exercises of discretionary authority granted to the
President by the Balanced Budget Act and the Taxpayer Re-
lief Act read in light of the previously enacted Line Item
Veto Act. Second, the Government submits that the sub-
stance of the authority to cancel tax and spending items “is,
in practical effect, no more and no less than the power to
‘decline to spend’ speciﬁed sums of money, or to ‘decline to
implement’ speciﬁed tax measures.” Brief for Appellants
40. Neither argument is persuasive.

In Field v. Clark, the Court upheld the constitutionality
of the Tariff Act of 1890. Act of Oct. 1, 1890, 26 Stat. 567.
That statute contained a “free list” of almost 300 speciﬁc arti-
cles that were exempted from import duties “unless other-
wise specially provided for in this act.”
Id., at 602. Sec-
tion 3 was a special provision that directed the President to
suspend that exemption for sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and
hides “whenever, and so often” as he should be satisﬁed that
any country producing and exporting those products im-
posed duties on the agricultural products of the United
States that he deemed to be “reciprocally unequal and
Id., at 612, quoted in Field, 143 U. S.,
unreasonable. . . .”
at 680. The section then speciﬁed the duties to be imposed
on those products during any such suspension. The Court
provided this explanation for its conclusion that § 3 had not
delegated legislative power to the President:

“Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation
of such legislation was left to the determination of the
President. . . . [W]hen he ascertained the fact that duties