Ruling: When it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith. Image: VegaTews/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA federal appeals court has refused to stay a judge’s order requiring OMB to resume online disclosure of whether and how agencies are spending funds appropriated by Congress for specific purposes.
The ruling by a panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit comes in a suit asserting that taking down “apportionment” information from https://apportionment-public.max.gov/ violated a requirement in law since 2022. As in the lower court, the panel rejected the government’s argument apportionment decisions cannot be publicly disclosed because they are not final decisions about how to administer the spending of public funds.
The government followed the 2022 law “without hiccup or objection until March 2025, when the Executive—facing multiple lawsuits claiming that it was unlawfully impounding congressional funds—changed course. Three years in, OMB declared ‘that the disclosure requirements made OMB’s administration of apportionments more difficult’ and so it disabled the website and declared that it would no longer operate or maintain the website,” the opinion said.
“To hear the Government tell it, the separation of powers hangs in the balance and only this Court can set things right. But when it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith,” the opinion said, adding that under the 2022 law, “there is no dispute that the Government has a statutory duty to disclose apportionment data.”
“Appellees, for their part, have shown harm if a stay is entered. They will be deprived of information that the Founding generation—from Franklin to Jefferson to Madison to Mason—all thought vital to our Republic . . . The public interest is best served by maintaining the separation-of-powers balance struck by the Constitution and especially so if the challenged statutes keep the citizenry abreast regarding duly appropriated expenditures,” it said.
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