Cite as: 521 U. S. 811 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
F. Supp., at 31 ("[T]he Supreme Court has never endorsed the [Court of Appeals'] analysis of standing in such cases"). The court held that appellees' claim that the Act "dilute[d] their Article I voting power" was sufficient to confer Article III standing: "[Appellees'] votes mean something different from what they meant before, for good or ill, and [appellees] who perceive it as the latter are thus 'injured' in a constitutional sense whenever an appropriations bill comes up for a vote, whatever the President ultimately does with it. . . . Under the Act the dynamic of lawmaking is fundamentally altered. Compromises and trade-offs by individual lawmakers must take into account the President's item-by-item cancellation power looming over the end product." Ibid.
The court held that appellees' claim was ripe even though the President had not yet used the "cancellation" authority granted him under the Act: "Because [appellees] now find themselves in a position of unanticipated and unwelcome subservience to the President before and after they vote on appropriations bills, Article III is satisfied, and this Court may accede to Congress' directive to address the constitutional cloud over the Act as swiftly as possible." Id., at 32 (referring to § 692(a)(1), the section of the Act granting Members of Congress the right to challenge the Act's constitutionality in court). On the merits, the court held that the Act violated the Presentment Clause, Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, and constituted an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President. 956 F. Supp., at 33, 35, 37-38.
The Act provides for a direct, expedited appeal to this Court. § 692(b) (direct appeal to Supreme Court); § 692(c) ("It shall be the duty of . . . the Supreme Court of the United States to advance on the docket and to expedite to the greatest possible extent the disposition of any [suit challenging the Act's constitutionality] brought under [§ 3(a) of the Act]"). On April 18, eight days after the District Court issued its order, appellants filed a jurisdictional statement asking us to note probable jurisdiction, and on April 21, appellees filed a
817
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