The struggle of power related to government spending is heating Washington, DCIgniting what some Democrats in the Senate call a “constitutional crisis” amid the efforts of the Trump administration to reduce government waste.
The conflict stems from the president Donald TrumpChoose to lead the Management and Budget Office (OMB), Russell vowong Freezing grants and federal loans On January 27 in the OMB note.
Trump and Pour Pour in a common dispute point: Anti -Reservation Law.
The 1974 Law, in which Trump argues and argues both unconstitutional, Re -confirm the power of Congress in the wallet and prohibits the executive branch of the one -sided congregation and blocks the allocated money.
However, many legal experts warn that the matter is not a discussion, and that the courts are clear; It is unconstitutional for the executive branch to convert Congress in dollars.
The Senate voted to confirm Vought on Thursday, 53-47, along the party's lines, after a 30-hour delay in Democrats to protest his candidacy.
Republicans claim that Vogue is qualified to lead the department because he previously worked in this role during the first period of Trump. “He will be able to reach the ground.”
However, the Democrats strongly opposed Vought nomination and claimed that his views on the reservation are not qualified for this role, with Senator Richard Blumentel, D-Kun, on Wednesday that Trump and believe “may be above the law.”
However, what is the reservation control law? Below is a look at what is to discuss government spending – and what changes can appear during the Trump administration.
What is the reservation control law?
The first article of the American Constitution gives Congress the authority to manage the federal budget to determine the financing decisions to achieve a balance between the government branches.
However, the act of reservation occurs when the executive authority chooses not to spend these dollars approved by Congress, because the executive branch, budget and administration office oversees the actual spending of the approved funds.
If the president wants to spend less than that of Congress in the budget, the executive branch must obtain approval from Congress. The delay in funds also requires the executive branch to inform Congress.
As a result, Congress approved the 1974 reservation law to create these appropriate channels for control in Congress if the president chooses to withhold or postpone these funds.
President Donald Trump nominates the director of the Administration and Budget Office, Russell Fior, during the nomination session of the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate building on January 22, 2025 in Washington, DC (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Vough's opponents expressed concern that his leadership will lead to more cases such as Freezing grants and federal loans revealed in the OMB memo on January 27, a step that Democrats say is illegal and violated the reservation monitoring law.
“As Trump wants to do so, the president is not a king,” said Jeff Merkeley, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, to reporters on January 28. “As Trump wants, the law is not a proposal.”
“These are not opinion questions,” said Merkeley. “These are principles at the heart of our constitutional system. It is at the heart of our tests and balances, and therefore we have a constitutional crisis.”
“This is” the function of Congress
Vogue has repeatedly defended his position that the Anti -Reservation Law is unconstitutional in multiple confirmation sessions and claimed that presidents could spend historically less than that of Congress before 1974.
Supporters of executive reservation often refer to the administration of Thomas Jefferson in 1803, when Congress has allocated funding for 15 war boats. However, Jefferson was affected by the purchase of boats because France was not worsening amid sensitive discussions between the names of the state at the time, James Madison and Napoleon. Buying boats eventually became unnecessary after buying Louisiana.
In addition, the Vogue's Americana Center, which is not profitable in 2021, said that reservation allows the executive authority to practice financial discipline and that the president has power to determine whether the money is used in the most efficient way.
Vought did not respond to a comment from Fox News Digital.
However, according to multiple legal experts, the constitution and courts are clear that the spending credits fall under the criteria of the legislative branch.
“The president has a constitutional commitment carefully to implement laws honestly, including spending,” Michael McConnell, Director of the Center for Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law at Stanford University, told Fox News Digital.
“So I do not know where Mr. Fion is getting from the president to somehow to decide what the government will spend on money,” he said. “This is the function of Congress.”
Despite Trump's views and immediately that the reservation monitoring law is unconstitutional, McConnell said he believed that “there is no reasonable possibility that the court will agree to this.
“The person who was getting the financing will have some parking,” said McConnell. “Therefore, I assume that if there is a pilgrim, there will be an immediate lawsuit under the Anti -Reservation Law.”
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Russell Fion has repeatedly defended his position that the reservation monitoring law was unconstitutional in multiple confirmation sessions. (Jacqueline Martin/Associated Press)
Other legal experts have agreed that if the Trump administration tries to block money, the courts will enter and confirm that there is no legal basis to do so.
This is because this is not a mysterious legal issue, according to the law professor at Georgetown Stephen Vladic.
“There are disputed issues from the constitutional law, but this is not one of them,” Vladic told Fox News Digital. “Otherwise, there will be a lot of benefit in the presence of a legislative branch.”
Legal experts claim that the courts have historically supported the constitutionality of the reservation monitoring law, and they refer to the case of the case of 1975 against New York City. In this case, the Supreme Court decided that the Environmental Protection Agency must use the full financing included in the amendments to the Federal Water Control Law of 1972, although President Richard Nixon at the time issued orders not to use all funding.
Vogue itself admitted in a confirmation session on January 22 that no legal court found that the reservation monitoring law is unconstitutional.
Dismopolis from the OMB memo
The courts have taken work in the wake of the recent Ombe note, which determines a temporary stop in grants and federal loans, and two federal judges temporarily prevented freezing.
Although the White House canceled the memorandum that stops federal aid on January 29, the White House press secretary Caroline Levit said this step is not equal to “canceling the freezing of federal financing.”
The White House did not respond to a request for suspension from Fox News Digital to nominate Vogue and Democrats comments that the memo was “illegal”.
The memo does not seem to take off the leadership of Republicans in Congress, which publicly described a standard standing as a standard protocol during an administrative rotation.
“I think this is an ordinary practice at the beginning of the administration, until they have an opportunity to review how to spend money,” the majority leader of the Senate John Thun told reporters on January 27. Watch somewhat how much, and … what they intend to do in a more period.
Parliament Speaker Mike Johnson, R, said.
However, the memorandum intensified opposition to the filter of Vogue. Specifically, the Democrats urged the entire Senate to refuse to nominate Fair on January 30 in response, following a committee vote on the progress of his candidacy in the Senate.
Mercli indicated that Veedt supervised OMB in 2019 when the office occupied $ 214 million of Ukraine's military aid – an issue that appeared as a major point in Trump's first isolation. Ultimately, the government accounting office decided in 2020 that the move violated the reservation monitoring law, before Trump's trial in the Senate. The Senate eventually voted to create Trump.
Therefore, Mercli described it as “dangerous” to the leadership of OMB and “a serious threat to our constitutional system of representative democracy.”
Josh Shaveitz, a professor of Georgetown Law, said that such a language as a “constitutional crisis” is reasonable, given that the authority of spending in Congress is one of the few but critical ways that guarantees the legislative branch that the executive branch does not exercise much power.
“These types of reservation are not only unconstitutional, but in reality they are hostile to the constitution,” Shaveitz told Fox News Digital. “They strike on the basis of our constitutional system.”
Reform on the horizon?
Democrats also do not believe that the last memo is an isolated incident. Senator Lightermine Chief Chuck Shomer, DN.Y. Warning on January 30 You will seek to block money Once again, oversee Omb – if the Senate assures him.
He pointed out that the Trump administration can start reform in the reservation law. In a confirmation session on January 22, Vogue the legislators told the legislators that although the accurate strategy is not yet sound, the Trump administration plans to complete a review with the Ministry of Justice to explore “law standards regarding the Anti -Reservation Law,” if the Senate assures it.
Vogue also indicated that some legislators who agree with his position on the reservation have suggested legislation on this topic. For example, Senator Mike Lee, R-UTAH, presented legislation in December 2024 to cancel the reservation monitoring law, on the pretext that the “unconstitutional restrictions” of the law on the executive branch “contributed to a financial crisis.”
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Senator Mike Lee, R-UTAH. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
While many legal experts agree that the legislative branch is the appropriate channel for reforming the Anti -Reservation Law, Chavitz doubts that there is an appetite for doing so and that legislators on both sides of the corridor consider attempts to “attack their institution.”
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As a result, Vladik said that the Trump administration only has a flow of mobility in the reservation control law: either adhering to it or amending it.
“As for what we can expect to move forward, it is quite possible that the administration tries to pay the envelope,” said Vladic. “But the burden on the administration must be to follow up the procedures approved by Congress and the President in 1974 – or in the case because of the lack of it.”
