Not to name drop, but yesterday at Bloggers Day in Richmond, I chatted briefly with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell about how other governors have used their veto powers. I noted that former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson had vetoed 750 bills during his two terms. McDonnell was surprised at how extensive Johnson’s use of the veto was, noting that he himself had only vetoed a handful of bills during his first two years as governor.
I also noted how former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson had turned his line-item veto authority into an art, by excising single punctuation marks or letters and sometimes changing bills into something opposite than that intended by the legislature. According to one estimate, Thompson used the line-item veto 1,500 times in the first eight years of his 14-year tenure. The legislature became so frustrated by the practice that in 2008, voters passed a constitutional amendment to circumscribe the Wisconsin governor’s line-item veto power.
This is all noteworthy because it happens that today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor touted the passage of H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislation Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011, saying:
“The bipartisan Expedited Line-Item Veto bill is an important tool that affords the Executive Branch and Congress the ability to control wasteful, unnecessary spending. With a $15 trillion national debt, hardworking American taxpayers need to know that their tax dollars are being spent in the most efficient way possible. I thank House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan for advancing this common sense budget process reform, while making certain Congress maintains its constitutional power of the purse.
“Like other budget reform bills, this legislation is part of House Republicans’ solution to put our country back on a sustainable fiscal path. I hope we can continue working in a bipartisan manner to enact responsible budget reforms that will get our fiscal house in order and create an environment for economic growth and job creation.”
Cantor leaves unanswered this question, however: How does this new bill overcome the constitutional objections to previous line-item veto legislation, as the U.S. Supreme Court did in 1998 in Clinton v. City of New York? That ruling stated that the line-item veto passed by Congress in the 1990s violated the Presentment Clause (Article I, Section 7, clauses 2 and 3).
Perhaps some Bearing Drift reader knows how H.R. 3521 differs from earlier line-item veto laws passed by Congress.
