Line-item veto

The line-item veto, or partial veto, is a special form of veto that authorizes a chief executive to reject particular provisions of a bill enacted by a legislature without vetoing the entire bill. Many countries have different standards for invoking the line-item veto, if it exists at all. Each country or state has its own particular requirement for overriding a line-item veto.

By country

Brazil

The President of Brazil has the power of the line-item veto over all legislation. Any provisions vetoed in such a manner are returned to the Brazilian congress, and can be overridden by a vote. Recently, the President of Brazil vetoed portions of a new forestry law which had been criticized as potentially causing another wave of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest.^[1]

Panama

The President of Panama has the ability to partially veto portions of a bill.^[2]

United States

Federal government

Dating to before the American Civil War, presidents including Ulysses S. Grant and Ronald Reagan have sought line-item veto powers. It was not until the Clinton presidency that Congress passed such legislation.^[3] Intended to control "pork barrel spending", the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 was held to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1998 ruling in Clinton v. City of New York. The court affirmed a lower court decision that the line-item veto was equivalent to the unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes and therefore violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution.^[4] Before the ruling, President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times.^[5][6]

Since then, the prospect of granting the President a line-item veto has occasionally resurfaced in Congress, either through a constitutional amendment or a differently worded bill. Most recently, the House of Representatives passed a bill on February 8, 2012, that would have granted the President a limited line-item veto; however, the bill was not heard in the Senate.^[7]

The most-commonly proposed form of the line-item veto is limited to partial vetoes of spending bills.^[3]

Confederate States of America

While the Constitution of the Confederate States of America was largely based on the U.S. Constitution, one of the most notable departures was the granting of a line-item veto to the President.^[8] Jefferson Davis, however, never exercised the provision.

State governments

Forty-three states—all except Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont—give their governors some form of line-item veto power.^[9] The Mayor of Washington, D.C. also has this power.^[10] Use of the line-item veto remains far less controversial at the state level than at the federal level.

References

See also

• Line-item veto in the United States