814
Opinion of the Court
and therefore direct that the judgment of the District Court
be vacated and the complaint dismissed.
I
The appellees are six Members of Congress, four of whom served as Senators and two of whom served as Congressmen in the 104th Congress (1995-1996).1 On March 27, 1996, the Senate passed a bill entitled the Line Item Veto Act by a vote of 69 to 31. All four appellee Senators voted "nay." 142 Cong. Rec. S2995. The next day, the House of Representatives passed the identical bill by a vote of 232 to 177. Both appellee Congressmen voted "nay." Id., at H2986. On April 4, 1996, the President signed the Line Item Veto Act (Act) into law. Pub. L. 104-130, 110 Stat. 1200, codified at 2 U. S. C. §691 et seq. (1994 ed., Supp. II). The Act went into effect on January 1, 1997. See Pub. L. 104-130, § 5. The next day, appellees filed a complaint in the District Court for the District of Columbia against the two appellants, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, alleging that the Act was unconstitutional.
The provisions of the Act do not use the term "veto." Instead, the President is given the authority to "cancel" certain spending and tax benefit measures after he has signed them into law. Specifically, the Act provides:
"[T]he President may, with respect to any bill or joint resolution that has been signed into law pursuant to Article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the United States, cancel in whole—(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; (2) any item of new direct spending; or (3) any limited tax benefit; if the President—
1 Three of the Senators—Robert Byrd, Carl Levin, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan—are still Senators. The fourth—Mark Hatfield—retired at the end of the 104th Congress. The two Congressmen—David Skaggs and Henry Waxman—remain Congressmen.
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