This past Friday, the Supreme Court issued an edict that has the potential to totally disrupt the equilibrium of authority between the legislative and executive branches featuring President Donald Trump. The decision grants Trump the ability to nullify $4 billion in monetary assistance to other countries, an allocation he’s bound to fulfill as per an act passed by Congress.
Trump asserts the jurisdiction to “impound” resources, implying he can opt not to disburse funds approved by Congress. In the period leading up to Trump’s reelection bid, legal minds from across the political spectrum concurred that impoundment is against constitutional principles. To be sure, many doubted whether an argument backing impoundment could be developed. As William Rehnquist, the future Chief Justice, articulated in a Justice Department memorandum from 1969, “it strikes us as notably challenging to construct a constitutional rationale legitimizing the President’s denial to adhere to a congressional mandate to expend funds.”
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Nonetheless, the justices seem to have engaged in voting strictly along partisan demarcations in Friday’s judgment, within a case officially named Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. All three of the Democratically appointed justices offered dissenting opinions, while none of the six Republican appointees publicly challenged the Court’s ruling. (The specific vote breakdown of the Republican justices was not disclosed, allowing for the theoretical possibility that one secretly dissented.)
Further, the Court’s verdict is erroneous. The justices within the majority presented a solitary sentence to elucidate their vote to permit Trump to annul the allocation. While they didn’t explicitly declare Trump’s action lawful, they did resolve that “the Government, in these preliminary stages, has adequately demonstrated that the Impoundment Control Act prevents” this legal action aimed at reinstating the funds in question from moving ahead.
However, as underscored by Justice Elena Kagan in her dissenting opinion, the Impoundment Control Act unequivocally states, “‘nothing provided within this Act … shall be interpreted’ as ‘impacting in any manner the assertions or defenses of any litigant pertinent to any impoundment.'” To put it another way, the Impoundment Control Act stipulates that it should not be construed to obstruct judicial proceedings that contest a president’s choice to curtail federal outlays. Consequently, the justices in the majority are reading the law in a fashion definitively prohibited by its own wording.
To be equitable, the determination reached by the Republican justices does incorporate verbiage that hints at a potential revisiting of the question of whether Trump is empowered to single-handedly revoke a federal spending statute down the line. Regardless of these justices eventually conceding their misstep and altering direction, their preliminary decision is liable to inflict an unprecedented quantity of detriment upon the country while it remains operative.
This is attributable to the AIDS Vaccine decision arriving precisely as the federal governing body was teetering on the brink of a cessation. To get it back on track, Congress will need to muster the votes required to pass a novel spending enactment. The Supreme Court has compounded this undertaking inordinately, seeing as Trump cannot be depended upon to uphold the conditions of any agreement aimed at reinstating the government if he reserves the prerogative to negate federal spending integral to that very agreement.
Why the AIDS Vaccine decision spells trouble for anyone wishing to see the government reopen
The timing of this verdict could scarcely have been less opportune — that is, supposing one values the continuity of government. When the clock strikes midnight on Wednesday, financing for a considerable portion of the federal government will run dry, signifying that the US government is edging closer to a standstill. Trump has intimated he intends to diminish federal benefits and terminate the employment of scores of government officials throughout this impasse.
Even with Republicans holding the reins in both congressional chambers and the White House, Senate regulations generally mandate 60 votes to enact legislation — a tally that surpasses the 53 seats currently held by Republicans in the Senate. Democratic representatives floated the idea of allocating additional votes to Republicans to ensure the government’s sustained operation, conditional on rescinding impending cuts to Obamacare and Medicaid.
This model of negotiation aligns with standard procedure. Democrats and Republicans commonly champion distinct spending focuses, and they typically forge a compromise, allowing them to fund the government.
However, traditionally, these conciliatory settlements have been viable because both factions trusted the other to honor the finalized agreement. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s decision in AIDS Vaccine intimates that, irrespective of congressional Democrats and Republicans arriving at a settlement that grants Democrats some of the sought-after health care allocation, Trump can merely nullify that allocation following the bill’s enactment to bring the shutdown to a close. Given his demonstrated capacity to abrogate the foreign aid disbursement authorized by Congress, as recently affirmed by the Court, what would preclude him from annulling any other element consented to by legislators?
That inference emerging from the justices’ ruling implies we could be facing a rather protracted shutdown. The negotiation of something as consequential and sophisticated as the federal budget is a daunting endeavor under any conditions. However, it could be rendered unfeasible if one of the participating entities lacks trust in the other to abide by its commitments.
In lieu of the aforementioned, Republicans may elect to revise Senate protocols, sanctioning the bill’s passage via a simple majority vote. Such a shift would probably mean that the minority coalition would be excluded from forthcoming budget deliberations, unless it maintains dominance over at least one chamber of Congress. Yet, throughout history, both coalitions have counted senators who are averse to letting legislation clear with a simple majority vote. Consequently, whether Republicans hold the requisite votes to terminate the shutdown by that avenue remains uncertain.
In essence, the United States might now be entering a drawn-out span characterized by unparalleled disorder. And the Republican justices should shoulder an equal portion of the responsibility for this disorder.
Source: vox.com
