2 ms·

> There is a lack of recent SCOTUS precedents on the topic How recent do you need? Nixon already tested this one and lost at the SC.

• skissane 2y ago
  Train vs City of New York is almost as old as Roe v Wade. I wouldn’t assume a 50+ year old precedent would be upheld by today’s majority. Plus, Train v City of New York didn’t actually consider the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act. It was about an impoundment decision made prior to that Act, under the rules in force before it. And although SCOTUS held the EPA’s impoundment action (directed by Nixon) to be illegal in this specific case, they didn’t rule on the validity of impoundments in general. In part, the case turned on the wording of the specific appropriation being impounded, and so it might not apply to another appropriation worded differently. Also, upholding congressional limits on presidential impoundment power in the context of one specific appropriation doesn’t mean they’d necessarily uphold the much broader limits on that power imposed by the Impoundment Control Act. Another factor is this case was about direct grants to the states. It is plausible that SCOTUS might decide that (following Train), the states have the right to direct grants appropriated to them by Congress, yet still hold the President has some constitutional impoundment right in distinguishable cases