University of Virginia Library

Humphrey To Discuss President's
'Unconstitutional' Impoundment

By JENNIFER LEVIN

CD/David Ritchie

Senator Hubert H. Humphrey

Sen. Hubert Humphrey
(D–Minn.) will attack
President Nixon's use of
executive authority in
impounding federal funds
when he speaks at the
University Thursday.

According to third-year law
student Charles Robb, Sen.
Humphrey's address will be in
retaliation to a defense of the
President's action by Sen.
Hugh D. Scott made at the
University last week.

Sen. Scott said at that time
that "because Congress can not
enforce the limit it imposed
on itself, the President must
impound certain funds to meet
the budget."

Sen. Humphrey believes the
impoundment of funds
appropriated by Congress is
unconstitutional.

"I have protested and will
continue to protest the
impoundment of duly
appropriated funds by the
Congress of the United States,
the elected representatives of
the people," the former
presidential candidate said last
autumn.

Scott Defended President

Unlike Mr. Scott, who has
defended the President's use of
power, Mr. Humphrey, in a
debate on Oct. 13, 1972 on the
Senate floor, said, "When a
president takes powers
previously unknown to him–as
this president is trying to do
now –he must take those
powers from somewhere. And
that somewhere is the Congress
of the United States. The
Senate...must decide whether it
is willing to acquiesce in a
presidential request which
demeans its own powers..."

Mr. Humphrey claims he is
"supposed to be liberal in
politics," but he is "trying to
defend the Constitution and
the strict construction
conservatives are trying to give
away the power of Congress."

Mr. Humphrey said if
Congress "gave the President
the right to trim budgets, to
cut appropriations, or to
exercise an item veto, it would
be violating the very essence of
the separation of powers as
prescribed in the
Constitution."

He added, "The only thing
at stake is the separation of
powers doctrine, the removal
of viable checks and balances
between the executive and
legislative branches, and the
role of Congress as a partner in
governing the land."

Will Discuss Priorities

Mr. Humphrey, like Mr.
Scott, will probably discuss
some of the priorities which
the President has set for
impoundment of funds. Many
of the programs that are
endangered were enacted under
President Johnson's
administration, and Mr.
Humphrey described them as
the late President's "living
legacy," in a speech on the
Senate floor last month.

Mr. Humphrey was
re-elected to the Senate in
1970 after his unsuccessful bid
for the presidency in 1968.

He was an early supporter
of financial assistance to state
and local government through
revenue-sharing and later
introduced a general
revenue-sharing bill early in
1971. He has denounced the
Nixon economic policies.