veto

Examples of veto in the following topics:

• Vetoes

  • Some projects allow a special kind of vote known as a veto.
  • With vetoes comes the problem of veto abuse.
  • You can prevent veto abuse by being very reluctant to use vetoes yourself, and by gently calling it out when someone else uses her veto too often.
  • Either the vetoing developer will back down, or the group will decide to weaken the meaning of a veto.
  • Like votes, vetoes can apply retroactively.

• Chief Legislator

  • When the president receives legislation, he decides whether to veto it, use the pocket veto, sign it, or do nothing.
  • In 1996, Congress attempted to enhance the president's veto power with the Line Item Veto Act.
  • If the president then vetoed the new legislation, Congress could override the veto by the ordinary method of a two-thirds vote in both houses.
  • Supreme Court ruled such a legislative alteration of the veto power to be unconstitutional.
  • Assess the significance of the Line Item Veto for executive power

• The Radical Record

  • In January 1866, Congress renewed the Freedman's Bureau, which Johnson vetoed in February.
  • An attempt to override the veto failed on February 20, 1866.
  • This veto shocked the Congressional Radicals.
  • However, the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto.
  • The Senate overrode the veto by the close vote of 33:15, the House by 122:41.

• Cleveland and the Special Interests

  • Cleveland faced a Republican Senate and often resorted to using his veto powers.
  • He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pension requests had already been rejected by the Pensions Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision.
  • When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that.
  • Cleveland used the veto far more often than any president up to that time.
  • After a drought ruined crops in several Texas counties, Congress appropriated $10,000 to purchase seed grain for farmers.Cleveland vetoed the expenditure, espousing his theory of limited government:

• Change Voting

  • A single "no" vote is enough to stop the change from being included; that is, a "no" vote in a release context is equivalent to a veto (see the section called "Vetoes").
  • People are conservative around releases anyway, and when someone feels strongly enough to veto the inclusion of a change, there's usually a good reason for it.
  • Because the release procedure is deliberately biased toward conservatism, the justifications offered for vetoes are sometimes procedural rather than technical.
  • People grumbled a little bit, but the vetoes stood and the change was not included in the release (I don't remember if any bugs were found in later testing or not, though).
  • In this case, the change acquired two positive votes, but was vetoed by tmartin, who gave the reason for the veto in a parenthetical note.

• Panic and Redemption

  • Many farmers and working men favored the bill, but Eastern bankers favored a veto because of their reliance on bonds and foreign investors.
  • On April 22, 1874, after evaluating his own reasons for wanting to sign the bill, Grant unexpectedly vetoed the bill against the popular election strategy of the Republican Party because he believed it would destroy the nation's credit.
  • Additionally, Eastern bankers vigorously lobbied Grant to veto the bill because of their reliance on bonds and foreign investors who did business in gold.
  • Grant on a platform is congratulated boisterously by an audience for vetoing the "inflation bill".

• Checks and Balances

  • An example of this is the president's veto power: the president can limit Congress's power by vetoing a bill.
  • However, the legislative branch can overturn this veto with a two-thirds majority in both of the houses, thus maintaining the balance.
  • The President exercises a check over Congress through his power to veto bills, but Congress may override any veto by a two-thirds majority in each house.

• The Conflict-Resolution Function

  • If the bill is vetoed, the president returns it to Congress with his objections.
  • A vetoed bill can still become law if each house of Congress votes to override the veto with a two-thirds majority.
  • However, if Congress is adjourned during this period, the president may veto legislation passed at the end of a congressional session simply by ignoring it.
  • This maneuver is known as a pocket veto.

• Labor Management Relations Act

  • Truman's veto on June 23, 1947 .
  • President Harry Truman vetoed Taft-Hartley, but Congress overrode his veto.

• State Constitutions

  • Strong governors with veto power over the legislature and substantial appointment authority
  • The new constitution substantially reduced universal white-male suffrage, gave the governor veto power and patronage appointment authority, and added to the unicameral legislature an upper house with substantial wealth qualifications.