Clinton v. City of New York, Line-Item Vetoes, and Impoundment
In the whirlwind of constitutional questions, I want to return to the issue of impoundment. Impoundment refers to the President withholding or refusing to spend congressionally allocated funds. President Trump has sought to deploy impoundment--albeit in different terms--in a few different contexts, such as "paus[ing]" disbursements of funds pursuant to the Inflation Reduction Act for electric charging stations, "freez[ing]" foreign aid made through various congressional appropriations, and "paus[ing]" appropriated aid to nongovernmental organizations supporting immigrant populations--among others.
As Professor Dorf has observed, such refusal to spend funds, whether the Trump Administration wishes to call it a "temporary pause" or whatever, is an impoundment under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). Passed in response to President Nixon's various impoundments, that statute prohibits presidential impoundment unless various substantive and procedural requirements are met, and none of those are met in the context of the Trump Administration's conduct.
Now one response by the Trump Administration has been that the ICA's limitations infringe on the core power of the President, the so-called "impoundment power." This argument, then, would challenge the constitutionality of the ICA in limiting the President's prerogative to refuse to spend congressionally allocated funds--and it would put our separation of powers in a full tailspin.
One practical response to this expansive argument of presidential power proceeds as follows: What's the point in appropriations negotiations between the parties in Congress and the President, if the President can just refuse to spend some allocation? Imagine the Dems (actually) fight hard to ensure that the budget involves no cuts to Medicare/Medicaid, and in the process make some other concessions on other allocations. The budgetary bill passes and President Trump (with Speaker Mike Johnson grinning, I suppose) says, "Just kidding! I'm going to withhold those Medicare/Medicaid funds." The Dems were hoodwinked and all of those negotiations were for naught. Indeed, the only negotiation move in such a context is to withhold funds--because even a robust impoundment power does not allow the President to spend where the money has not been allocated. But of course that negotiation tactic may not do the Dems many favors, as many of their objectives require spending.
There's also a doctrinal response, appealing to Train v. City of New York, which related to one of the aforementioned impoundments by President Nixon. Specifically, the case concerned allotments under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. The statute was initially passed but vetoed by President Nixon. Congress overrode the veto and then Nixon, through his EPA administrator Russell Train, refused to allot the full amount of funds appropriated by the statute, instead capping the allotments to a much smaller amount. The City of New York, an intended beneficiary of the appropriations, sued to require the EPA to allot the full amount appropriated under the Act. The Supreme Court agreed, stating that the statute did not authorize the EPA to cap the allotments.
One way of understanding Train is that the Court was setting a constitutional limit on the President's power--that impoundment was unconstitutional. But the reasoning of Train is focused on the statutory language of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (the Clean Water Act), holding that the statute did not grant the President discretion to refuse to spend the relevant funds. Now, the ultimate result--that the President could not withhold the funds--would suggest that the Court was also holding that the President does not have an inherent constitutional authority to impound, but the Court did not actually say that. And when the Court has not been explicit, there's certainly a danger that the Trump Administration is willing to exploit that silence.
In that void then I think that Clinton v. City of New York does clarify the picture on the impoundment power. Indeed, in response to the President's March 24, 2025 emergency designation memorandum, which purported to refuse to spend certain funds, Senators Susan Collins and Patty Murray stated that the President must follow all (or none) of the congressional spending directives, because "the President does not have a line-item veto...."
At issue in Clinton was the Line Item Veto Act, which was passed by Congress and purported to give the President the power to strike individual provisions from appropriations bills. The City of New York brought suit, with a number of other entities, challenging President Clinton's use of the line-item veto in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Specifically, the Balanced Budget Act appropriated to New York City funds for medical care to the indigent, and Clinton struck that line item. New York City argued that the line-item veto was unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court agreed. In an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the Line Item Veto Act authorized a procedure of striking appropriations that violated the Presentment Clause of the Constitution. According to the Court, the line-item veto allowed the President to amend the legislation--by striking particular expenditures thereby altering the content of the legislation--and the Constitution does not afford the President such power. Importantly, the Court distinguished a President's return of the bill from a line-item veto--the return happens before the bill becomes law, while the statutory cancellation of an appropriation comes after the bill becomes law--and again the Court observed that nothing in the Constitution allows the President to "repeal or amend parts of duly enacted statutes."
This seems to make clear that impoundments too would violate the constitution. If Congress cannot gift the President the power to strike individual appropriations and refuse to spend such congressionally allocated money, then a fortiori the President cannot do that of their own accord. Allowing the President to do so would both (1) allow the President to engage in amendment of appropriations bills; and (2) "repeal or amend" appropriations of duly enacted statutes. (Indeed, Profs. Buchanan and Dorf made this point in the context of the debt ceiling.)
Thus, based on our current law and understanding of separation of powers, it is clear that impoundment is unconstitutional. Allowing impoundments does not merely give the President discretion in "taking care" or executing the law--it allows the President to engage in lawmaking that directly contravenes Congress's exercise of its core authority.
--Guha Krishnamurthi