Trump Is Going Back to War With Congress

While many governors have a line-item veto, presidents did not have one until Congress passed the Line-Item Veto Act of 1996. It was quickly challenged in federal court and then unanimously struck down by the Supreme Court in the 1998 case Clinton v. City of New York. The justices held that the Constitution only allows the president to sign legislation or veto it, not to amend it before it becomes law.

“If the Line Item Veto Act were valid, it would authorize the President to create a different law—one whose text was not voted on by either House of Congress or presented to the President for signature,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court, referring to the 1997 budget. “Something that might be known as ‘Public Law 105-33 as modified by the President’ may or may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that may ‘become a law’ pursuant to the procedures designed by the Framers of Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution.”

Impoundment is even more extreme than a line-item veto because Trump, unlike Clinton, would be acting without congressional authorization or widespread public support. Indeed, Trump would have to break the law to do it. That brings us to the second reason why “nobody” has heard of impoundment: It is illegal.