
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 25, 1995                   TAG: 9504060042
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

SKEPTICS SAY LINE-ITEM VETO IS ILLEGAL

The line-item veto, on track for congressional passage and President Clinton's signature, appears a sure bet for one more challenge - in court.

The Senate passed one version of a line-item veto Thursday, following by about two months a similar House vote.

A line-item veto would give a president the power to selectively eliminate individual items in massive spending bills. A House-Senate conference must resolve differences in the two versions before the measure can be sent to Clinton.

``The sooner such a bill reaches my desk, the sooner I can take further steps to cut the deficit,'' the president said.

Not so fast, say some experts.

``The line-item veto is clearly unconstitutional,'' Alan B. Morrison of the Public Citizen Litigation Group said. ``I fully expect it will be challenged, sooner or later. And we are ready and willing to go to court to help those challengers.''

The major hurdle, Morrison said, is Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution.

It says every bill by the House and Senate must be signed by the president before it becomes a law, and that the president may disapprove any such bill.

The measure passed by the Senate on Thursday calls for any multi-part spending bill approved by both houses to be broken into hundreds of smaller bills before being sent to the president.

``That's the fundamental flaw,'' he said. ``The president is vetoing a `bill' Congress never acted on."

by CNB