The House and the Wall

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (often called the second-highest court) ruled on Friday that the House could sue to stop the President from building the wall when such appropriations were expressly denied in legislation. The decision focused on standing (whether the House suffered a particularized injury so as to be the appropriate plaintiff, another subject we cover in Federal Courts). But the foundation of the opinion is the Appropriations Clause, the power of Congress to control the purse through the power of one house to veto expenditures, and the problem of the President ignoring legislative decisions. As the court put it:

To put it simply, the Appropriations Clause requires two keys to unlock the Treasury, and the House holds one of those keys. The Executive Branch has, in a word, snatched the House’s key out of its hands.