Federal Decision on ACORN Funding: Does ACORN Have a Right to Your Tax Dollars??

Patterico:

News broke a couple of days ago that a federal judge had ruled that Congress violated the Constitution when it passed a bill cutting off ACORN’s funding. Specifically, the judge ruled in her opinion that the Congressional act had violated the Bill of Attainder Clause.

I don’t find the decision convincing. It seems to me that the opinion essentially establishes some sort of ongoing right to federal funding. This isn’t like a case where the Government actually punishes someone — such as the hypothetical Eugene Volokh Execution Act of 2009 mentioned in this 2009 Eugene Volokh post on the subject. Congress is simply saying: we choose not to fund a particular organization. Such decisions, it seems to me, are for Congress to make, and not some federal judge.

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