Line-item veto
Encyclopedia
In United States
government
, the line-item veto
, or partial veto, is the power of an executive authority
to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill
, usually a budget appropriations bill, without vetoing the entire legislative package. The line-item vetoes are usually subject to the possibility of legislative override as are traditional vetoes.
in the United States. All but six US states have some form of line-item veto. Those states without the line-item veto are Indiana
, Nevada
, New Hampshire
, North Carolina
, Rhode Island
, and Vermont
.
, it was granted to the President of the Confederate States as the American Civil War
broke out in 1861. Article 1, Section 7 of the Confederate States Constitution
, adopted March 11, 1861, allowed the president of the Confederacy the ability to "approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill," with such disapprovals returned to the houses of congress for reconsideration and potentially for override.
has stripped them of it after they received it from Congress. According to Louis Fisher in The Politics of Shared Power, Ronald Reagan
said to Congress in his 1986 State of the Union address, "Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I'll take the responsibility, I'll make the cuts, I'll take the heat." Bill Clinton
echoed the request in his State of the Union address in 1995.
The President was briefly granted this power by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, passed by the Congress to control "pork barrel spending" that favors a particular region rather than the nation as a whole. The line-item veto was used 82 times in 11 Bills from the federal budget by President Clinton.
However, United States District Court
Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled on February 12, 1998, that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the Presentment Clause
of the United States Constitution. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998, by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court in the case Clinton v. City of New York
. The case was brought by the then New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
.
An amendment to the Constitution that would give the president line-item veto power has been considered periodically since the Court declared the 1996 act unconstitutional.
On that same day, Joshua Bolten, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, gave a press conference on the President’s line-item veto proposal. Bolten explained that the proposed Act would give the President the ability to single out “wasteful” spending and to put such spending on hold. While the spending line-item is on hold, the President can send legislation to Congress to withdraw the particular line-item. The proposal would then be considered in both houses within ten days on an up or down basis, and could be passed by a simple majority. Additionally, such proposals could not be filibustered.
When asked how this proposed legislation was different from the 1996 Line-Item Veto Act that the United States Supreme Court had declared illegal, Bolten said that whereas the former act granted unilateral authority to the Executive to disallow specific spending line items, the new proposal would seek Congressional approval of such line-item vetoes. Thus, for the President to successfully withdraw previously enacted spending, a simple majority of Congress is required to agree to specific legislation to that effect.
Though the current line-item veto proposal is much weaker than the 1996 version, it has nevertheless failed to find strong support in the Congress. Senator Robert C. Byrd
of West Virginia, who was frequently accused, during his tenure in the Senate, of repeatedly inserting pork-barrel spending that favored his state into budget appropriations, called it "an offensive slap at Congress," asserting that the legislation would enable the President to intimidate individual members of any Congress by targeting the projects of his political opponents. He also complained that the line-item veto as proposed would take away the Congress’s constitutional "power of the purse" and give it to the executive branch.
On June 8, 2006, Viet D. Dinh, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and Nathan A. Sales, John M. Olin Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, testified by written statement before the House Committee on the Budget on the constitutional issues in connection with the proposed legislation. Dinh and Sales argued that the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 satisfies the Constitution’s Bicameralism and Presentment Clause, and therefore avoids the constitutional issues raised in the 1996 Act struck down by the Supreme Court. They also stated that the proposed Act is consistent with the basic principle that grants the Congress broad discretion to establish procedures to govern its internal operations.
H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act, was approved by the House Budget Committee on June 14, 2006 by a vote of 24-9. It was approved in the full House on June 22. A similar version was included in the "Stop Over Spending Act of 2006," authored by Senator Judd Gregg, in the Senate and approved by the Senate Budget Committee, but the full Senate failed to approve it, thereby preventing the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act from becoming law.
(D-WI) and Senator John McCain
(R-AZ) introduced legislation of a limited version of the line-item veto. This bill would give the president the power to withdraw earmarks
in new bills by sending the bill back to Congress minus the line-item vetoed earmark. Congress would then vote on the line-item vetoed bill with a majority
vote under fast track
rules to make any deadlines the bill had.
, believe the line-item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending compared with the power of the Congress. Some argue that it could even give the President de facto legislative authority in altering the law which could violate the principles, and perhaps even the letter, of the Constitution
.
Supporters of the line-item veto argue that the provision would make the President more accountable for federal spending. Also, the line-item veto can be used to prevent the enactment of controversial rider
amendments that powerful legislators have sometimes inserted into important bills, or at least it can be used to ensure that someone elected at the national level is accountable for the enactment of such amendments. Without the line-item veto, Presidents have often felt compelled to sign controversial riders into law even if they did not support them. Bob Barr
's former 2008 Libertarian Party
running mate Wayne Root has also endorsed the line-item veto to go with his libertarian political views on spending while also suggesting the lifting of the Congressional ban on presidents impounding bills
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
, the line-item veto
Line-item veto
In United States government, the line-item veto, or partial veto, is the power of an executive authority to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill, usually a budget appropriations bill, without vetoing the entire legislative package...
, or partial veto, is the power of an executive authority
Executive (government)
Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...
to nullify or cancel specific provisions of a bill
Bill (proposed law)
A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....
, usually a budget appropriations bill, without vetoing the entire legislative package. The line-item vetoes are usually subject to the possibility of legislative override as are traditional vetoes.
Governors
This power is held by most state governorsGovernor (United States)
In the United States, the title governor refers to the chief executive of each state or insular territory, not directly subordinate to the federal authorities, but the political and ceremonial head of the state.-Role and powers:...
in the United States. All but six US states have some form of line-item veto. Those states without the line-item veto are Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
, and Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
.
Confederate States
While this power is not supported by the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, it was granted to the President of the Confederate States as the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
broke out in 1861. Article 1, Section 7 of the Confederate States Constitution
Confederate States Constitution
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America, as adopted on March 11, 1861 and in effect through the conclusion of the American Civil War. The Confederacy also operated under a Provisional Constitution from February 8, 1861 to March...
, adopted March 11, 1861, allowed the president of the Confederacy the ability to "approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill," with such disapprovals returned to the houses of congress for reconsideration and potentially for override.
Line-Item Veto Act of 1996
Presidents of the United States have repeatedly asked the Congress to give them a line-item veto power, but in all such cases, either the Congress have refused or the Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
has stripped them of it after they received it from Congress. According to Louis Fisher in The Politics of Shared Power, Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
said to Congress in his 1986 State of the Union address, "Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I'll take the responsibility, I'll make the cuts, I'll take the heat." Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
echoed the request in his State of the Union address in 1995.
The President was briefly granted this power by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, passed by the Congress to control "pork barrel spending" that favors a particular region rather than the nation as a whole. The line-item veto was used 82 times in 11 Bills from the federal budget by President Clinton.
However, United States District Court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled on February 12, 1998, that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the Presentment Clause
Presentment Clause
The Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution outlines federal legislative procedure by which bills originating in Congress become federal law in the United States.-Text:...
of the United States Constitution. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998, by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court in the case Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York
Clinton v. City of New York, , is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United...
. The case was brought by the then New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
.
An amendment to the Constitution that would give the president line-item veto power has been considered periodically since the Court declared the 1996 act unconstitutional.
Subsequent developments
Though the Supreme Court struck down the Line-Item Veto Act in 1998, President George W. Bush asked the Congress to enact legislation that would return the line-item veto power to the Executive Authority. First announcing his intent to seek such legislation in his January 31, 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush sent a legislative proposal Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006 to the Congress on March 6, 2006, urging its prompt passage. Senator Bill Frist, Senator John McCain, and Republican Whip Senator Mitch McConnell jointly introduced this proposal. Representative Paul Ryan introduced his own version, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006, in March of that year.On that same day, Joshua Bolten, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, gave a press conference on the President’s line-item veto proposal. Bolten explained that the proposed Act would give the President the ability to single out “wasteful” spending and to put such spending on hold. While the spending line-item is on hold, the President can send legislation to Congress to withdraw the particular line-item. The proposal would then be considered in both houses within ten days on an up or down basis, and could be passed by a simple majority. Additionally, such proposals could not be filibustered.
When asked how this proposed legislation was different from the 1996 Line-Item Veto Act that the United States Supreme Court had declared illegal, Bolten said that whereas the former act granted unilateral authority to the Executive to disallow specific spending line items, the new proposal would seek Congressional approval of such line-item vetoes. Thus, for the President to successfully withdraw previously enacted spending, a simple majority of Congress is required to agree to specific legislation to that effect.
Though the current line-item veto proposal is much weaker than the 1996 version, it has nevertheless failed to find strong support in the Congress. Senator Robert C. Byrd
Robert Byrd
Robert Carlyle Byrd was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010...
of West Virginia, who was frequently accused, during his tenure in the Senate, of repeatedly inserting pork-barrel spending that favored his state into budget appropriations, called it "an offensive slap at Congress," asserting that the legislation would enable the President to intimidate individual members of any Congress by targeting the projects of his political opponents. He also complained that the line-item veto as proposed would take away the Congress’s constitutional "power of the purse" and give it to the executive branch.
On June 8, 2006, Viet D. Dinh, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and Nathan A. Sales, John M. Olin Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center, testified by written statement before the House Committee on the Budget on the constitutional issues in connection with the proposed legislation. Dinh and Sales argued that the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 satisfies the Constitution’s Bicameralism and Presentment Clause, and therefore avoids the constitutional issues raised in the 1996 Act struck down by the Supreme Court. They also stated that the proposed Act is consistent with the basic principle that grants the Congress broad discretion to establish procedures to govern its internal operations.
H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act, was approved by the House Budget Committee on June 14, 2006 by a vote of 24-9. It was approved in the full House on June 22. A similar version was included in the "Stop Over Spending Act of 2006," authored by Senator Judd Gregg, in the Senate and approved by the Senate Budget Committee, but the full Senate failed to approve it, thereby preventing the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act from becoming law.
Line Item Veto Re-Enactment Activity of 2009
Senator Russ FeingoldRuss Feingold
Russell Dana "Russ" Feingold is an American politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic party member of the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 2011. From 1983 to 1993, Feingold was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.He is a recipient of the John F...
(D-WI) and Senator John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
(R-AZ) introduced legislation of a limited version of the line-item veto. This bill would give the president the power to withdraw earmarks
Earmark (politics)
In United States politics, an earmark is a legislative provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees...
in new bills by sending the bill back to Congress minus the line-item vetoed earmark. Congress would then vote on the line-item vetoed bill with a majority
Majority
A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...
vote under fast track
Fast Track
Fast Track is an informal English phrase meaning "the quickest and most direct route to achievement of a goal, as in competing for professional advancement".Fast Track may also refer to:* Fast Track, a FoxBusiness.com show hosted by Anna Gilligan...
rules to make any deadlines the bill had.
Debate
Some scholars, such as Louis FisherLouis Fisher
Louis Fisher was the Socialist Labor Party of America candidate for United States President in the 1972 Presidential election and he was "the party's top vote-getting presidential candidate." His Vice Presidential candidate was Genevieve Gundersen.Fischer also ran for Governor of Illinois twice...
, believe the line-item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending compared with the power of the Congress. Some argue that it could even give the President de facto legislative authority in altering the law which could violate the principles, and perhaps even the letter, of the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
.
Supporters of the line-item veto argue that the provision would make the President more accountable for federal spending. Also, the line-item veto can be used to prevent the enactment of controversial rider
Rider (legislation)
In legislative procedure, a rider is an additional provision added to a bill or other measure under the consideration by a legislature, having little connection with the subject matter of the bill. Riders are usually created as a tactic to pass a controversial provision that would not pass as its...
amendments that powerful legislators have sometimes inserted into important bills, or at least it can be used to ensure that someone elected at the national level is accountable for the enactment of such amendments. Without the line-item veto, Presidents have often felt compelled to sign controversial riders into law even if they did not support them. Bob Barr
Bob Barr
Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr, Jr. is a former federal prosecutorand a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of...
's former 2008 Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
running mate Wayne Root has also endorsed the line-item veto to go with his libertarian political views on spending while also suggesting the lifting of the Congressional ban on presidents impounding bills
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is a United States federal law that governs the role of the Congress in the United States budget process.-The Congressional budget process:...
.
See also
- Clinton v. City of New YorkClinton v. City of New YorkClinton v. City of New York, , is a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United...
, 524 U.S. 417 (1998) - Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997)
- Immigration and Naturalization Service v. ChadhaImmigration and Naturalization Service v. ChadhaImmigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 , was a United States Supreme Court case ruling in 1983 that the one-house legislative veto violated the constitutional separation of powers.-Parties:...
, 462 U.S. 919 (1983)
External links
- Bush calls for line-item veto - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - March 7, 2006
- TESTIMONY of Stephen Moore Director of Fiscal Policy Studies The Cato Institute before the Committee on Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives - THE CATO INSTITUTE - March 23, 2000
- Summary and text of Bush's proposal
- AboutGovernmentStates.com