A 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court decided that Trump cannot take core powers that the Constitution gives Congress. Instead, Congress must delegate any such power clearly and unambiguously. 

This is a big decision. It goes far beyond merely interpreting the 1997 International Emergency Economic Powers Act not to give Trump the power over tariffs that he claims to have. It reaffirms a basic constitutional principle about the division and separation of powers between Congress and the president. 

On its face, this decision clarifies that Trump cannot decide on his own not to spend money Congress has authorized and appropriated — such as the funds for USAID he refused to spend. And he cannot on his own decide to go to war. 

“The Court has long expressed ‘reluctan[ce] to read into ambiguous statutory test’ extraordinary delegations of Congress’s powers,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for himself and five other justices in the opinion released yesterday in Learning Resources v. Trump. 

He........

© Eurasia Review