Veto
The word
veto
comes from
Latin and literally means
I forbid. It is used to denote that a certain party has the right to unilaterally stop a certain piece of legislation. A veto thus gives unlimited power to stop changes, but not to adopt them.
The veto originated with the
Roman tribunes who had the power to unilaterally refuse legislation passed by the
Roman Senate.
The word "veto" does not appear in the
United States Constitution. Per
U.S. Const., Article I, Section 7 all legislation passed by both houses of Congress must be presented to the
President. This presentation is in the President's capacity as head of state.
If the President approves of the legislation, he signs it. If he does not approve, he must return the bill, unsigned, within ten days (excluding Sundays) to the house of Congress in which it originated. The President is constitutionally required to state his objections to the legislation in writing, and the Congress is constitutionally required to consider them, and to reconsider the legislation.
If on reconsideration the Congress passes the bill by a 2/3 majority in each house, it becomes law without the President's signature. Otherwise, the bill fails to become law unless it is presented to the President again and he chooses to sign it.
A bill can also become law without the President's signature if, after it is presented to him, he simply fails to sign it within the ten days noted. But if there are less than ten days left in the session before Congress adjourns, and if Congress
does so adjourn before the ten days have expired in which the President
might sign the bill, then the bill fails to become law. This procedure, when used as a formal device, is called a
pocket veto.
In
1996, the Congress passed and President
Clinton signed the
Line Item Veto Act of 1996. This act allowed the President to veto individual items of budgeted expenditures from appropriations bills instead of vetoing the entire bill and sending it back to the Congress. This
line-item veto was immediately challenged by Members of
Congress who disagreed with it. In
1998, the
Supreme Court held that line item veto was unconstitutional. The Court found the language of the Constitution required each bill presented to the President to be either approved or rejected as a whole. An action by which the President might pick and choose which parts of the bill to approve or not approve amounted to the President acting as a legislator instead of an executive and head of state - and particularly as a single legislator acting in place of the entire Congress - thereby violating the Separation of Powers doctrine. (See
Clinton v. City of New York, .)
In
2006, Senator
William Frist introduced the
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 in the
United States Senate - but this is a misnomer. The procedure created by the Act merely provides that, if the President should recommend recission of a budgetary line item from a budget bill he previously signed into law - a power he already posseses pursuant to U.S. Const. Art. II - the Congress must vote on his request within ten days. Insomuch as the legislation that be the question of the President's request (or "Special Message," in the language of the bill) will have already been enacted and signed into law, either by this president or a prior president, any action by the Congress would be ordinary legislative action, not any kind of veto - whether line-item or legislative or any other sort.
In
1982, the Supreme Court had struck down the one-house
legislative veto, also on Separation of Powers grounds and on grounds that the action by one house of Congress violated the Constitutional requirement of bicameralism. The case was
INS v. Chadha, concerning a foreign exchange student in
Ohio who had been born in
Kenya but whose parents were from
India. Because he was not born in India, he was not an Indian citizen. Because his parents were not Kenyan citizens, he was not Kenyan. Thus, he had nowhere to go when his student visa expired because neither country would take him, so he overstayed his visa and was ordered to show cause why he should not be deported from the United States.
The Immigration and Nationality Act was one of many acts of Congress passed since the 1930's, which contained a provision allowing either house of that legislature to nullify decisions of agencies in the Executive Branch simply by passing a resolution. In this case, Chadha's deportation was suspended and the House of Representatives passed a resolution overturning the suspension, so that the deportation proceedings would continue. This, the Court held, amounted to the House of Representatives passing legislation without the concurrence of the Senate, and without presenting the legislation to the President for consideration and approval (or veto). Thus, the Constitutional principle of bicameralism and the Separation of Powers doctrine were violated in this case, and this legislative veto of executive decisions was struck down.
The presidential veto power in the United States is a paradox and an irony. The United States is a republic and the American presidency evolved out of the presidency of the
Continental Congress, but the the president's veto power traces to the history veto power of the British monarch and the predecessor monarchs of England and Scotland. The irony is that no monarch has vetoed an Act of Parliament since Queen Anne (1702-1714) in 1707 or 1708. Thus, the President of the United States is a republican officer who exercises a British monarchial power that the British monarch lost before the United States was even founded.
The Presidents of Continental Congress (1774 - 1781), of course, had no power of veto. Nor could the President veto an Act of Congress under the
Articles of Confederation (1781 - 1789), though he possessed certain recess and reserve powers that were not necessarily available to the predecessor President of Continental Congress. But with the enactment of America's second constitution, the
United States Constitution (drafted 1787; ratified 1788; fully effective since 4 March 1789), veto power
was conferred upon the person titled "President of the United States."
The presidential veto power was first exercised on
April 5,
1792 when
George Washington vetoed a bill designed to apportion representatives among the several
states. The Congress first overrode a presidential veto - that is, passed a bill into law notwithstanding the President's objections - on
March 3,
1845.
Most U.S. states also have a provision by which legislative decisions can be vetoed by the governor. Most states grant line-item veto power to the governor.
In the constitution of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
Poland, there was an institution called the
liberum veto. All bills had to pass the
Sejm (Parliament) by
unanimous consent, and if any legislator voted
nay on anything, this not only vetoed that bill but dissolved the legislature itself.
In
Switzerland, the
government cannot stop legislation by itself, but 50,000 voters or eight
cantons can demand that a law enacted or certain treaties ratified by the
Federal Assembly be made subject to a binding popular
referendum. When this constitutional rule was introduced in the 19th century, it was widely referred to as the "people's veto".
In the
United Nations Security Council, the five permanent members (the
United States,
Russia, the
People's Republic of China,
France and the
United Kingdom) have veto power. If any of these countries votes against a proposal, it is rejected, even if all of the other member countries vote in favour.
In
Westminster Systems and most
constitutional monarchies, the power to veto legislation by withholding the
Royal Assent is a rarely-used
reserve power of the monarch, the representative of the monarch (e.g., governor general), or British-style
president (who serves the same function as a constitutional monarch, but in a republic). In the United Kingdom, the royal veto was last exercised in 1707 or 1708 by
Queen Anne.
In
Australia, the
Queen may veto a law that has been given royal assent by the
Governor-General within one year of the legislation being assented to. The Queen has a similar power in
Canada.
*
Report/List of Vetoes: Kevin R. Kosar, Regular Vetoes and Pocket Vetoes: An Overview.
