A Modest Proposal: The Line Item Veto

[John-in-KC]

Kahuna,

 

I know a Repbulican Eagle Scout Congresscritter (Sam Graves, MO-6) who may lose my vote if he just simply rolls over on line item veto legislation, instead of advocating an Amendment. Ditto the Republican Junior Senator from Missouri, Jim Talent.

 

I've already shot them email, as well as one to the Senior Senator, Kit Bond. Since he's on the long cycle to re-election I didn't say this was a gut-check issue for my vote though.

 

I don't expect those I vote fore to fall on their swords on major issues; I do expect them to fight the good fight.

 

[Lisabob]

Kahuna, the term limit idea is an interesting one. Several states have instituted term limits for their legislatures. The state I'm living in now is one of them; we added term limits in the mid 90s when it was the "in" thing to do. Interestingly enough, there's a lot of talk these days about undoing that change. One thing a lot of people are coming to realize is that term limits throw out the good with the bad. There's a serious lack of experience among our state legislators these days as a result of term limits. There's also an increase in "revolving door" behavior, where a former elected official suddenly becomes an appointed official, becomes a lobbyist, etc., which may or may not be "better" for "the people". Some are even suggesting that this has made blatent partisan bickering worse because, hey, what do you have to lose if you're a term limited legislator? You'll only be around for a few years before your term expires so there's not a real need for long-term cooperation, compromise, and negotiation. You can burn that bridge behind you 'cause you can't go back anyway.

 

I guess that's my round-about way of saying that there are some unintended negative consequences to the whole term limits idea, too.

 

Lisa'bob

[SR540Beaver]

Playing the devil's advocate and bring ing up the "I voted for it before I voted against it" quote again. Here is a perfect example of why Presidents want line item vetos.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701229_pf.html

 

House Agrees To Vote On Ports

 

Efforts by the White House to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned company's acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed yesterday when House Republican leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.

 

Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) will attach legislation to block the deal today to a must-pass emergency spending bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A House vote on the measure next week will set up a direct confrontation with President Bush, who sternly vowed to veto any bill delaying or stopping Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Co...........

 

So if Bush wants to fund his war, he has to sign or veto legislation that harms his port deal. Will he be forced to say, "I voted for funding the war before I funded not to fund the war"?

 

In my opinion, rule changes should be made that do not allow attaching legislation to a bill if that legislation has nothing to do with the original bill. Then you vote on individual items and not packages and a line item veto is not needed.

[Kahuna]

Lisa'bob,

 

Yes, you would throw out the good (if you could find any) with the bad, but you would change the system. Right now, the whole legislative system is run according to rules it sets for itself. Very little of it is in the Constitution: filibusters, seniority, committees, majority leader/minority leader, are all made up stuff. If everyone was on an equal footing, I think we would stand a better chance of getting important legislation passed. A major change would be the motivation for getting into Congress. If you couldn't make it a career, you would have to be altruistic. There would be some loons elected, I'm sure, but they would be term limited.

 

The big danger that I see with term limited Congress is that, without the current structure and the senior pols, the administrators could take over the system. I'm not sure how to deal with that, but, as I said earlier, this is about as likely to happen as my flying on the next space shuttle. The pols are the ones who would have to instigate the changes and they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

[Oak Tree]

There are 43 states that allow the line item veto. They seem to do a generally better job of keeping funding under control than does the federal government.

 

While there would be side effects, I think the primary effect would be to reduce the pork, and to force some attention on individual line items that a great majority would view as unwise spending.

 

Oak Tree

[Kaji]

I'm all in favor of it as a control measure, and because I'm sick of people attaching unrelated **** to bills in congress. True, it can be taken too far (some states that have it give the power to veto individual characters and words, meaning one can reword and reverse the meaning of things with their veto powers. If you limit it to sentences/clauses, however, I see it as a powerful tool, especially when you factor in that the veto can still be overruled).

 

That said, I can see a case for wanting a constitutional amendment for it. I don't, however, see it as unconstitutional.

[GernBlansten]

Kaji, Here you go.

 

Full text http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._City_of_New_York

 

Excerpt...

 

The Court decided that the Act allowed the President to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of duly enacted statutes by using line-item cancellations, and therefore violated the Presentment clause of the Constitution (article I, section 7, clause 2), which outlines a specific practice for enacting a statute. The Court construed the silence of the Constitution on the subject of such unilateral Presidential action as equivalent to "an express prohibition", agreeing with historical material that supported the conclusion that statutes may only be enacted "in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure" (from INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983)) and that a bill must be approved or rejected by the President in its entirety.