Raines v. Byrd

By the time Raines v. Byrd came before the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton had used the line item veto to strike $2 billion from the annual budget. Many have hoped that the Line Item Veto would prove an effective weapon against "pork barrel spending," appropriations of money by legislators with the purpose of benefiting their districts, states, or favorite interest groups. The actual presidential authority granted by the act, however, was not as large as it seemed on first glance. By not ruling on the constitutionality of the act itself, the Court left that question open for another case.