Reading Room Document

The Effect of an Appropriations Rider on the Authority of the Justice Department to File a Supreme Court Amicus Brief

A rider in the 1990 appropriations legislation for the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission, and other agencies that provides that no funds appropriated by that legislation may be used to repeal, modify, or reexamine certain FCC policies does not forbid the Justice Department from filing a Supreme Court amicus brief in a case in which those policies are at issue. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/23341/download.

February 5, 1990