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How Our Laws Are Made
XVIII. Presidential Action
Veto Message - Line
Item Veto
Article I, Section
7, of the Constitution provides in part that --
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and
the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President
of the United States.
In actual practice, a clerk of the Committee on House Oversight,
or the Secretary of the Senate when the bill originated in that body, delivers
the original enrolled bill to a clerk at the White House and obtains a
receipt. The fact of the delivery is then reported to the House by the
chairman of the committee. Delivery to a White House clerk has customarily
been regarded as presentation to the President and as commencing the 10-day
constitutional period for presidential action.
Copies of the enrolled bill usually are transmitted by the White
House to the various departments interested in the subject matter so that
they may advise the President on the issues surrounding the bill.
If the President approves the bill, he signs it and usually writes
the word "approved" and the date. However, the Constitution requires
only that the President sign it.
The bill may become law without the President's signature by virtue
of the constitutional provision that if the President does not return a
bill with objections within 10 days (excluding Sundays) after it has been
presented to the President, it become law as if the President had signed
it. However, if Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, it does
not become law. The latter event is known as a "pocket veto";
that is, the bill does not become law even though the President has not
sent his objections to the Congress. The Congress has interpreted the President's
ability to pocket veto a bill to be limited to final adjournment "sine
die" of a Congress and not to interim adjournments or first session
adjournments where the originating House of Congress through its agents
is able to receive a veto message for subsequent reconsideration by that
Congress when it reconvenes. The extent of pocket veto authority has not
been definitively decided by the courts.
Notice of the signing of a bill by the President is sent by message
to the House in which it originated and that House informs the other, although
this action is not necessary for the act to be valid. The action is also
noted in the Congressional Record.
A bill becomes law on the date of approval or passage over the President's
veto, unless it expressly provides a different effective date.
Veto Message
By the terms of the Constitution, if the President does not approve
the bill "he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in
which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large
on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it." A bill returned with
the President's objections, need not be voted on at once when laid before
the House since the vetoed bill can be postponed, referred back to committee,
or tabled before the question on passage is pending. A vetoed bill is always
privileged until directly voted upon, and a motion to take it from the
table or from committee is in order at any time.
Once the relevant Member moves the previous question on the question
of override, the question is then put by the Speaker as follows: "Will
the House on reconsideration agree to pass the bill, the objections of
the President to the contrary notwithstanding?" Under the Constitution,
a vote by the yeas and nays is required to pass a bill over the President's
veto. The Clerk activates the electronic system or calls the roll with
those in favor of passing the bill answering "Aye," and those
opposed "No." If fewer than two-thirds of the Members present
vote in the affirmative, a quorum being present, the bill is rejected,
and a message is sent to the Senate advising that body of the House action.
However, if two-thirds vote in the affirmative, the bill is sent with the
President's objections to the Senate, unless that body has acted first,
together with a message advising it of the action in the House.
The procedure in the Senate is the same as a two-thirds affirmative
vote is also necessary to pass the bill over the President's objections.
If the Senate joins the House and votes two-thirds in the affirmative to
pass the bill, the measure becomes the law of the land notwithstanding
the objections of the President, and it is ready for publication as a binding
statute.
Line Item Veto
The Line Item Veto Act provides the President authority to cancel
certain individual items contained in a bill or joint resolution that he
has signed into law. The President may cancel only three types of fiscal
items: a dollar amount of discretionary budget authority, an item of new
direct spending, and a tax change benefiting a class of 100 or fewer. The
cancellations must be received by the House and Senate within five calendar
days of the enactment of such a law and are effective unless disapproved.
The President submits a single message to both Houses containing all the
cancellations per law. The Act also provides special expedited procedures
by which the House and Senate may consider a bill or joint resolution disapproving
a President's cancellation. Such a "disapproval bill" may be
passed by a majority vote in the House and Senate and presented to the
President for his signature or veto under the Constitution. If the disapproval
bill were vetoed by the President, the House and Senate could override
the veto by a two-thirds vote in each House in which case the President's
cancellations would be null and void. The constitutionality of the Line
Item Veto Act is the subject of pending litigation at the time of publication
of this edition.
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