Appropriations and Youngstown

The standard story of Youngstown goes something like this. President Truman ordered the seizure of the steel mills. The steel firms sued. They won in the Supreme Court. Congress did nothing.

But this is wrong. Congress did (sort of) do something while the litigation was pending. The Senate rejected a special appropriation that was proposed to fund the government's operation of the mills. This occurred on April 21, 1952. Curiously, this action was not mentioned by any of the opinions in the case (I'm going to double-check, but I'm pretty sure.) Obviously, this expression of disapproval strengthens the case made by the Court that Truman was not executing congressional policy in seizing the mills. I will dig into this further.