How many vetos did Obama use?

Answer 1

In the first six years of his presidency, President Obama issued only two vetoes, one of the lowest numbers of any president. This was because Sen Harry Reid stopped the Senate of submitting bills for signature by the President. Under Reid the budgeting process has been totally mismanaged. 1n 2013 The Democrat-controlled Senate passed its first formal budget proposal in four years.

Exasperated House Democratic leaders have compiled a list showing that they have passed 290 bills that have stalled in the Senate. Harry Reid stopped legislation form reaching the Presidents desk and thus few vetos.

Aside from the several resolutions and less-critical bills that the Senate passes by unanimous consent at the end of the day, the Senate has held roll call votes to advance or pass legislation just 21 times in 27 weeks - less than one a week. And a full one-third of those votes have failed amid GOP complaints that they have no input into the process.

Of the 14 votes that succeeded, most were on major "must pass" bills on issues that required House-Senate coordination - like the budget and spending deals and the so-called Medicare "doc fix" - or on issues that generated easy bipartisan cooperation, like eliminating a cut to cost-of-living adjustments for U.S. soldiers.

Aside from those 14 bills, the Senate has adopted a seemingly backward strategy of seeking less input from Republicans the more controversial the issues get. The seven other votes were on bills that have so far failed, in large part because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has told Republicans he will not allow any amendment votes.

Many have tagged the 113th Congress as the least-productive in history. Congress has passed the fewest number of bills into law in decades, a fact that some blame on the Republican House.

2013's statistics showed just how slow Congress, and in particular the Senate, has become at passing legislation. President Obama signed about 60 bills into law - a record low - and most of those bills originated in the House. Until the last few years, Congress had been able to send more than a 100 and sometimes more than 200 bills to the White House.

While Democrats are blaming the House for the slowdown, Republicans have charged that the problem lies with the Senate, where Reid is letting Democrats avoid tough votes on controversial issues in order to help their re-election prospects. That Democratic posture has led to several legislative dead ends in the Senate, and many wasted weeks in which no significant action is seen on any legislation.

And while legislative production has dropped in the House, it still manages to pass dozens of bills each year, most of which go ignored in the Senate.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has argued for months that the House has passed more than 30 jobs bills that have been forgotten in the Senate. Just this month, the Senate finally got around to passing one of them, the SKILLS Act, which will revamp federal jobs training programs.

Republicans have openly criticized Reid for his opposition to even considering many other House-passed bills, in combination with his apparent need to avoid votes that would have hurt Democrats even more in the 2014 mid-term elections.

"The reason the Majority Leader will not allow amendments is because he wants to protect his members from actually being held accountable by the voters of the United States of America," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said on the Senate floor last month. "It's demeaning this Senate, and he demeans the loyal opposition who are doing the only thing they have as a tool, which is refuse to move forward with a bill if the Majority Leader is going to use parliamentary maneuvers to block anybody's amendment."

This as enabled President Obama to use his pen and his Obama phone to make his own legislation.

Answer 2

In the first six years of his presidency, President Obama issued only two vetoes, one of the lowest numbers of any president. But now that there is total Republican control of the congress, we may assume he will use his veto pen a little more than that, although how much is difficult to predict. This answer will be updated once his total of presidential vetoes changes.

Answer 3

Two so far. In fact, the president has not used very many vetoes during his first term: he vetoed one bill in 2009, and another in 2010.

Answer 4

None. President Obama has only vetoed two bills at this point in his presidency, and in neither case was the veto over-ridden by congress.