Editing Antonin Scalia (section)

====Separation of powers====

[[File:Justice Antonin Scalia on Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances.webm|thumb|upright=1.15|Justice Scalia testified before the [[United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary|Senate Judiciary Committee]] about [[separation of powers]] and checks and balances of the U.S. Government]]

It was Scalia's view that clear lines of separation among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches follow directly from the Constitution, with no branch allowed to exercise powers granted to another branch.{{sfn|Ring|2004|pp=44–45}} In his early days on the Court, he authored a powerful<!-- word used by source -->—and solitary—dissent in ''[[Morrison v. Olson]]'' (1988), in which the Court's majority upheld the [[United States Office of the Independent Counsel|Independent Counsel law]]. Scalia's thirty-page draft dissent surprised Justice [[Harry Blackmun]] for its emotional content; Blackmun felt "it could be cut down to ten pages if Scalia omitted the screaming".<ref name="wolf">{{Harvnb|Biskupic|2009|pp=136–38}}.</ref> Scalia indicated that the law was an unwarranted encroachment on the executive branch by the legislative. He warned, "Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing&nbsp;... But this wolf comes as a wolf".<ref name="wolf" />

The 1989 case of ''[[Mistretta v. United States]]'' challenged the [[United States Sentencing Commission]], an independent body within the judicial branch whose members (some of whom were federal judges) were removable only for good cause. The petitioner argued that the arrangement violated the separation of powers and that the [[United States Sentencing Guidelines]] promulgated by the commission were invalid. Eight justices joined in the majority opinion written by Blackmun, upholding the Guidelines as constitutional.{{sfn|Staab|2006|pp=74–75}} Scalia dissented, stating that the issuance of the Guidelines was a lawmaking function that Congress could not delegate{{sfn|Staab|2006|p=76}} and dubbed the Commission "a sort of junior-varsity Congress".<ref name="wolf" />

In 1996, Congress passed the [[Line Item Veto Act]], which allowed the president to cancel items from an [[appropriations bill]] (a bill authorizing spending) once passed into law. The statute was challenged the following year. The matter rapidly reached the Supreme Court, which [[Clinton v. City of New York|struck down]] the law as violating the [[Presentment Clause]] of the Constitution, which governs what the president is permitted to do with a bill once it has passed both houses of Congress.{{sfn|Staab|2006|pp=78–79}} Scalia dissented, seeing no Presentment Clause difficulties and feeling that the act did not violate the separation of powers. He argued that authorizing the president to cancel an appropriation was no different from allowing him to spend an appropriation at his discretion, which had long been accepted as constitutional.{{sfn|Staab|2006|pp=80–82}}