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pocket veto

 
Dictionary: pocket veto   (pŏk'ĭt-vē') v.

n.
  1. The indirect veto of a bill received by the President within ten days of the adjournment of Congress, effected by retaining the bill unsigned until Congress adjourns.
  2. A similar action exercised by a state governor or other chief executive.
pocket-veto pock'et-ve'to
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Wordsmith Words: pocket veto
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(POK-it VEE-toh)

noun
An indirect veto of a bill as a result of the president's failure to sign it within ten days of the adjournment of Congress; a similar holding of a bill by a state governor or other executive.

Etymology
From the notion that the bill is held in the pocket unsigned. From Latin veto (I forbid).

Usage
"President Clinton blocked a similar bill from becoming law with a pocket veto last December." — Jake Lewis, Bankrupt Policies, Multinational Monitor (Washington), May 2001.


Idioms: pocket veto
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The implied veto of a bill by the President of the United States or by a state governor or other executive who simply holds the bill without signing it until the legislature has adjourned. For example, The President used the pocket veto to kill the crime bill. This expression dates from the 1830s and alludes to putting the unsigned bill inside one's pocket.


Political Dictionary: pocket veto
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In the United States, before a bill that has passed the House and the Senate becomes a law the President must sign it. If he declines to sign a particular bill it automatically becomes law after ten congressional working days. However, if Congress adjourns before the required ten days have elapsed the bill is deemed not to have passed. The President has, in a sense, placed the bill in his pocket—thus a pocket veto.

— David Mervin

US Government Guide: pocket veto
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The pocket veto is the power of the President to veto a bill sent to him within the 10-day period prior to congressional adjournment, without any possibility of a congressional override. The Constitution (Article 1, Section 7) provides that if Congress passes a bill and sends it to the President, he has 10 days in which to veto the bill and return it with his objections. But if Congress adjourns within that 10-day period, the President cannot return the bill with a veto message and any bill that has already been sent to the President is automatically vetoed unless he decides to sign it into law. The end-of-session pocket veto (named for the practice of putting the bill in the President's pocket until Congress adjourns) cannot be overridden by a two-thirds vote of each chamber; it is irreversible. The President sends no message to Congress indicating his objections to the measure, nor does he return the bill to either chamber for further action. A new bill must be introduced and go through the entire legislative process.

In the Pocket Veto Case (1929), the Supreme Court decided that “adjournment” meant not only end-of-session adjournments but could also mean recesses, or district work periods, within a congressional session. The key issue was not whether Congress intended to return but whether its absence prevented return of the bill within the designated 10-day period.

Presidents have sometimes abused the pocket veto. They have killed measures when Congress adjourned or recessed for short periods, even when Congress intended to return within 10 days and could easily have received the President's regular veto message. Both Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford used the pocket veto during interim adjournments of a few days during a session of Congress—Nixon to kill a health care bill and Ford to veto vocational rehabilitation, farm labor, and wildlife refuge measures. Congress responded to this misuse of the pocket veto by designating officers in each chamber to receive veto messages from the President, thereby attempting to retain the ordinary veto system. In the 1970s Senate leaders began the practice of waiting until Congress returned from short recesses before sending bills it had passed to the White House in order to avoid the entire issue.

In 1974 the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., ruling in Kennedy v. Sampson, barred the President's use of the pocket veto during short congressional recesses, provided an officer was appointed by Congress to receive an ordinary Presidential veto message.

See also Checks and balances; Veto power

Sources

  • U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Constitutionality of the President's Pocket Veto Power (92nd Cong., 1st sess., 1971).
  • Clement Vose, “The Memorandum Pocket Veto”, Journal of Politics 26, no. 2 (May 1964): 397–405
US History Encyclopedia: Pocket Veto
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Pocket Veto, an indirect veto by which a U.S. president negates legislation without affording Congress an opportunity for repassage by an overriding vote. The Constitution provides that measures presented by Congress to the president within ten days of adjournment and not returned by him before adjournment fail to become law. They are said to have been pocket vetoed. First employed by President James Madison, the pocket veto has been used by every president since Benjamin Harrison. Controversy over the practice has focused on the definition of "adjournment": presidential usage has included brief recesses, whereas congressional critics have argued that the term intends only lengthy adjournments.

Bibliography

Jones, Charles O. The Presidency in a Separated System. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994.

Neustadt, Richard. Presidential Power and the Modern Presidency: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan. New York: Free Press, 1990.

Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.

Taft, William Howard. The Presidency: Its Duties, Its Powers, Its Opportunities, and Its Limitations. New York: Scribner, 1916.

Tugwell, Rexford G., and Thomas E. Cronin, eds. The Presidency Reappraised. New York: Praeger, 1974.

Law Dictionary: Pocket Veto
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A means by which the President of the United States may effectively veto an act of Congress without exercising the presidential veto right. Under the U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 7, Cl. 2, the President must veto legislation within 10 days after it has been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, or else the legislation will become law. However, if Congress adjourns before the end of the 10-day period the legislation will only become law if the President has signed it. Accordingly, the President may effectively veto legislation that was passed within the last 10 days of the congressional session merely by not signing it into law. 279 U.S. 655.

Politics: pocket veto
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An automatic veto of a bill that occurs if the president or governor neither signs nor vetoes a bill within ten days of receiving it — as long as the legislature adjourns during that period. If the legislature convenes during that period, the bill will automatically become law. A pocket veto cannot be overridden by the legislature, though the bill can be reintroduced at the next legislative session.

Wikipedia: Pocket veto
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A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver in American federal lawmaking that allows the President to indirectly veto a bill. The U.S. Constitution requires the President to sign or veto any legislation placed on his desk within ten days (not including Sundays) while the United States Congress is in session. From the U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 7 states:

"… If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law. "

If the President does not sign the bill within the required time period, the bill becomes law by default. However, the exception to this rule is if Congress adjourns before the ten days have passed and the President has not yet signed the bill. In such a case, the bill does not become law; it is effectively, if not actually, vetoed. If the President does sign the bill, it becomes law. Ignoring legislation, or "putting a bill in one's pocket" until Congress adjourns is thus called a pocket veto. Since Congress cannot vote while in adjournment, a pocket veto cannot be overridden (but see below). James Madison became the first president to use the pocket veto in 1812.[1]


Contents

Legal status

Courts have never fully clarified when an adjournment by Congress would "prevent" the President from returning a vetoed bill. Some Presidents have interpreted the Constitution to restrict the pocket veto to the adjournment sine die of Congress at the end of the second session of the two-year Congressional term, while others interpreted it to allow intersession and intrasession pocket vetoes. In 1929, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Pocket Veto Case that a bill had to be returned to the chamber while it is in session and capable of work. While upholding President Calvin Coolidge's pocket veto, the court said that the "determinative question…is not whether it is a final adjournment of Congress or an interim adjournment…but whether it is one that 'prevents' the President from returning the bill." In 1938, the Supreme Court overruled itself in part in Wright v. U.S., ruling that Congress could designate agents on its behalf to receive veto messages when it was not in session, saying that "the Constitution does not define what shall constitute a return of a bill or deny the use of appropriate agencies in effecting the return." A three-day recess of the Senate was considered a short enough time that the Senate could still act with "reasonable promptitude" on the veto. However, a five-month adjournment would be a long enough period to enable a pocket veto. Within those constraints, there still exists some ambiguity; Presidents have been reluctant to pursue disputed pocket vetoes to the Supreme Court for fear of an adverse ruling that would serve as a precedent in future cases.[2]

Current controversy

Recent events have brought the legal status of the pocket veto back to the forefront of American politics.

In December 2007, President George W. Bush pushed the pocket veto into murky waters by claiming that he had pocket vetoed H.R. 1585, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008,"[3] even though the House of Representatives had designated agents to receive presidential messages before adjourning.[4] The bill had been previously passed by veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate. If the President had chosen to veto the bill, he would have been required to return it to the house whence it originated, which, in this case, was the House of Representatives. The House then could have voted to override the veto, and the Senate could then do likewise. In the event that each house had voted by at least two-thirds majority to override the veto, the bill would become law.[5]

A spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated: "Congress vigorously rejects any claim that the president has the authority to pocket-veto this legislation, and will treat any bill returned to the Congress as open to an override vote." A White House spokesperson has said: "A pocket veto, as you know, is essentially putting it in your pocket and not taking any action whatsoever. And when Congress — the House is out of session — in this case it’s our view that bill then would not become law."

Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar at the Library of Congress indicated: "The administration would be on weak grounds in court because they would be insisting on what the Framers decidedly rejected: an absolute veto."[6] By "absolute veto" Fisher was referring to the fact that a bill that has been pocket vetoed cannot be overridden. Instead, the bill must be reintroduced into both houses of Congress, and again passed by both houses, an effort which can be very difficult to achieve.

In the end, the House of Representatives did not attempt to override it. Instead, in January 2008, the House effectively killed H.R. 1585 by referring it to the Armed Services Committee. It then passed H.R. 4986, a bill nearly identical to H.R. 1585 but slightly modified to meet the President's objection, which subsequently became law.[7]

This is not the first time that a President has attempted to pocket veto a bill despite the presence of agents to receive his veto message. Both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton made similar attempts, and even further back in American history, Abraham Lincoln used it against the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Fisher, Louis: The Pocket Veto: Its Current Status, Mar. 30, 2001.
  2. ^ Foster, Brian: Glossary of Legislative Terminology, UM Library updated June 09, 2005, Oct. 29, 2006.
  3. ^ Memorandum of Disapproval, Dec 28, 2007 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071228-5.html
  4. ^ Robert J. Spitzer, "Is Bush Inventing Another Constitutional Power?" History News Network, Jan. 7, 2008, http://hnn.us/articles/46161.html
  5. ^ The U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Clause 2 reads "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not 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. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law."
  6. ^ The Hill, "Democrats say Bush can't pocket veto defense bill", Jan 2nd, 2008 http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-say-bush-cant-pocket-veto-defense-bill-2008-01-02.html
  7. ^ GovTrack.us. H.R. 4986--110th Congress (2008): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, GovTrack.us (database of federal legislation) <[1]> (accessed Sep 22, 2008)
  8. ^ Robert J. Spitzer, The Law: The 'Protective Return' Pocket Veto: Presidential Aggrandizement of Constitutional Power," Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4, Dec. 2001, pp. 720-732.

 
 

 

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