The Shaky Legal Basis for Government Shutdowns
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/arti...ns_110505.html
apparently the shutdown opinion/ruling is based on Jimmy Carter's district attorney.
As I discuss in a recent paper, the Anti-Deficiency Act’s (ADA) prohibition on personal services is virtually never enforced, except in one special case: federal employees who work voluntarily during a government “shutdown.” This relatively new development can be traced back to a legal opinion from the early 1980s by President Carter’s attorney general, Benjamin R. Civiletti, and a 1995 memorandum opinion written by Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger for the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Clinton years. These opinions effectively transformed the ADA from a corruption-control law to a weapon that could be used by the executive branch to extort cooperation from Congress.