Raines v. Byrd - Impact

In the aftermath of Raines, responses were drawn on predictable lines. Coats, the act's author, called the ruling "a victory for common sense and fiscal integrity." Moynihan, one of the appellees, suggested that a future case would result in the act being ruled unconstitutional. On 31 October 1997, several months after the decision, Susan Page of USA Today assessed its impact in an article entitled "Line-Item Veto Alters Political Landscape." The veto, Page wrote, "has changed the budgetary balance of power, giving the president the final say over small projects that legislators often see as essential to their districts' livelihood or their own political future." The predicted challenge to the act soon came, with Clinton v. City of New York (1998). This time the litigants were a diverse group including several New York hospitals and a group of potato-growers' from Idaho, and the case named the president himself. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan struck down the line-item veto in February of 1998, and the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional on 27 April.