In Year 2 of Trump’s funding grab, Congress fights back

In practice, the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment on whether the White House intends to execute new pocket rescissions in the coming weeks.

Key points

• Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a senior appropriator in line to be the No.
• "It would depend on what it is – it really would, " the Oklahoma Republican remarked last month.
• In courtrooms throughout the country, federal judges continue to weigh in on whether Trump is illegally encroaching on Congress' funding power.
• Last month a federal judge declared that the administration can't cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact.
• "When are our Republican colleagues going to assert our legislative authority?" Rep.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole remarked White House office-holders have given him no assurances that they won't deploy the tactic again this year and that his reaction would hinge on the type of funding eliminated.

Last month a federal judge declared that the administration can't cancel grants based on new rules or goals established after the fact. The Trump administration afterwards admitted in a different case that it canceled $7.6 billion "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state." Then a federal judge halted changes to teen-pregnancy prevention grants, concluding that it's unlawful "to impose conditions. That Congress did not intend or that are unreasonable or unexplained."

In practice, the Supreme Court has yet to conclusively rule on the president's spending tactics, and plenty of Democrats on Capitol Hill argue Republicans shouldn't rely on the courts to defend Congress' authority. GOP leaders have repeatedly bucked Democratic calls for action, including to reverse the cancellation of specific grants, nullify Trump 's pocket rescission last fall and head off a future end-run around Congress by barring rescissions requests in the last months of the fiscal year.

"When are our Republican colleagues going to assert our legislative authority?" Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a top appropriator, remarked in an interview. "I mean, why in the hell did they run for Congress?"

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a senior appropriator in line to be the No. 2 Democrat in the next Congress, was more charitable.

"I just think there's a bipartisan desire to get back to the way the Constitution is supposed to operate, " he remarked in an interview, "where we decide how the money is spent."

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Taken together, the developments around in Year 2 of Trump's funding grab, Congress fights back point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.