Legislative veto

In 1932 Congress and the administration of President Herbert Hoover agreed to a major new departure in the process of crafting legislation. Negotiators for the two branches prepared a statute with language that gave the president the power to reorganize the executive branch, while allowing Congress subsequently to override the chief executive if either the House or the Senate did not approve of the manner in which he accomplished that objective. Over the ensuing half century, Congress placed similar legislative veto provisions in more than two hundred laws.

The Supreme Court, in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), declared this practice a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. One house of Congress did not have the constitutional authority to veto a determination by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that a foreign student could remain in the United States after his visa had expired. More broadly, the Court held that while Congress has the power to pass laws, it may not participate in their execution. “Congress must abide by its delegation of authority until that delegation is legislatively altered or revoked” (pp. 954–955). All legislative vetoes, the Court held, violated the Presentment Clause (Art. I, sec. 7), and a one‐house veto also violated the bicameral requirement (Art. I, secs. 1 and 7).71

Despite the Chadha ruling, Congress and successive presidential administrations have continued to craft informal legislative understandings that require written approval of House and Senate appropriations committees before agencies may take specified actions. The executive has been willing to accept this after‐the‐fact congressional control as the price for obtaining a greater discretionary authority than Congress would otherwise have been likely to grant.

See also Separation of Powers.

— Richard Allan Baker

Because the Constitution permits the President to veto, or reject, legislation passed by Congress, Congress has tried to create its own legislative veto. The legislative veto began as a way to give the President an opportunity to create policies that would stand unless either the House or the Senate (or both) voted against them. In 1932, Congress enacted legislation that permitted President Herbert Hoover to reorganize the executive branch. His reorganization plans would automatically go into effect after 60 days if neither house disapproved. After Hoover was defeated for reelection, he issued executive orders to consolidate government activities. The Democratic majority in the House rejected all of his plans.

During the 1970s Congress considerably expanded its use of the legislative veto over many executive agency regulations. In the case of Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983), the Supreme Court ruled that a one-house legislative veto was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. In cases where people's legal rights are at stake, the Court declared, both houses of Congress must enact legislation or pass a joint resolution to be signed by the President. Although the Supreme Court's ruling undermined the legislative veto's legal standing, Congress has not been willing to abandon the practice completely in its attempt to restrain the executive branch. Future court challenges will likely follow.

see also Judicial review; Veto power

Sources

• Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985)

A legislative veto exists in governments that separate executive and legislative functions if actions by the executive can be rejected by the legislature.

Contents 1 United States 1.1 History 1.2 INS v. Chadha 2 See also 3 External links

United States

The legislative veto had a short-lived function in the United States government.

History

Beginning in the 1930s, the concurrent resolution (as well as the simple resolution) was put to a new use—serving as the instrument to terminate powers delegated to the Chief Executive or to disapprove particular exercises of power by him or his agents. The legislative veto or congressional veto was first developed in context of the delegation to the Executive of power to reorganize governmental agencies and was first authorized by the Reorganization Act of 1939. It was furthered by the necessities of providing for national security and foreign affairs immediately prior to and during World War II.

The proliferation of congressional veto provisions in legislation over the years raised a series of interrelated constitutional questions. Congress until relatively recently had applied the veto provisions to some action taken by the President or another executive officer—such as a reorganization of an agency, the lowering or raising of tariff rates, the disposal of federal property—then began expanding the device to give itself a veto over regulations issued by executive branch agencies, and proposals were made to give Congress a veto over all regulations issued by executive branch independent agencies.

INS v. Chadha

Wikisource has original texts related to this article:

Article I, Section 1 (English)

Article I, Section 7 (English)

In Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), the Supreme Court held a one-House congressional veto to be unconstitutional as violating both the bicameralism principles reflected in Article I, in Section 1 and Section 7, and the presentment provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 of Section 7. The Court's analysis of the presentment issue made clear, however, that two-House veto provisions, despite their compliance with bicameralism, and committee veto provisions suffer the same constitutional infirmity. In the words of dissenting Justice White, the Court in Chadha "sound[ed] the death knell for nearly 200 other statutory provisions in which Congress has reserved a 'legislative veto.'"

See also

• Veto
• INS v. Chadha
• United States Constitution

External links

• Constitution with Annotations - Article II. Legislative Department

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