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114 Geo. L.J. Online 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/gljon114 and id is 1 raw text is: Appropriations Presidentialism MATTHEW B. LAWRENCE,* ELOISE PASACHOFF,** & ZACHARY S. PRICE* Since the start of the second Trump Administration, the Executive Branch has attempted to change how federal spending works by asserting unilateral, centralized authority to condition, delay, cancel, or otherwise disrupt federal obligations and expenditures without regard to longstanding legal understandings and norms. This appropriations presidentialism is unprecedented in scope and degree, and it threatens to weaken a key congressional check on executive policy, while also disrupting the settled expectations of civil servants, contractors, grantees, program beneficiaries, and others who were counting on continuedfederalfundingfor certain programs or activities. Those injured by these executive actions are understandably turning to courts for redress. But while courts have an important role to play in maintaining checks and balances, excessive judicial oversight offederal spending risks further shifting control away from Congress and exacerbating the potentialfor disruption offunding recipients' expectations. This Essay documents this new appropriations presidentialism and offers preliminary reflections on appropriate responses. Noting that many important threshold questions about the role of courts in this area are unsettled, the Essay urges courts addressing spending disputes to proceed with caution and due attention to the complex tradeoffs that attend judicial intervention in this area. In addition, it urges courts to attend carefully to the specifics of the appropriations and authorizing laws that govern individual programs and activities, even in the face of sweeping executive claims of blanket authority. Andfinally, it stresses that there is ultimately no substitute for senators' and representatives' energy and attention when it comes to maintaining Congress's constitutional authority over the public purse. * Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Faculty, Emory Law School; Affiliate Faculty, Petrie- Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. © 2025, Matthew B. Lawrence, Eloise Pasachoff, & Zachary S. Price. ** Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Eucalyptus Foundation Endowed Chair, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. We thank Martha Coven, Jack Goldsmith, Gillian Metzger, Molly Reynolds, Bijal Shah, and participants in the ABA Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section 2025 Spring Academic Paper Workshop for valuable comments. We also thank Chris Wynn and Chase Clark for helpful research assistance and the editorial team at The Georgetown Law Journal Online for their careful work and thoughtful suggestions.