Bush Seeks Limited Veto Power on Spending

President Bush asked Congress on Monday to give him limited authority to veto individual items in spending measures, resurrecting a top priority of fiscal conservatives.

Expressing optimism that the measure would win congressional approval and pass court tests, the White House said its proposal took into account objections the Supreme Court had raised in 1998 when it ruled that a similar provision signed two years earlier by President Clinton was unconstitutional.

In Congress, however, the outcome was less certain than the White House suggested.

Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate objected to the plan, but it probably will benefit from the momentum building to rein in “earmarks” -- the practice of inserting into legislation specific spending measures that benefit only individual projects or communities.

Referring to the court’s rejection of the law eight years ago, Bush said: “That should not be the end of the story.”

He said his proposed measure would give him “the authority to strip special spending and earmarks out of a bill, and then send them back to Congress for an up-or-down vote.”

The president has frequently expressed his interest in obtaining the line-item veto -- an authority granted to 43 of 50 U.S. governors -- but he has not made a concerted push to gain congressional approval for it and had not sent a specific proposal to Congress until Monday. As Democrats frequently point out, the budget has gone from healthy surplus to spiraling deficit during his five years in office, while Bush has failed to veto any legislation.

But “fertile ground ... exists now in Congress,” said Josh Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget -- referring to the growing pressure in the House and the Senate to limit earmarks.

Under Bush’s formula, unlike the one ruled unconstitutional eight years ago, Congress would retain the last word.

If the president opposes certain provisions in a spending bill, the proposal would allow him to sign the legislation but defer spending the disputed money.

Congress would then be asked to approve a second measure killing the offending provisions. It would have 10 days to comply, and would not be allowed to amend it or delay a vote by filibuster. If Congress did not support the president’s request, the targeted spending would have to proceed.

Under the Constitution, the House and Senate must pass a bill, and the president must sign it, for legislation to become law. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Line Item Veto Act amended that process by giving the president new power to cancel some parts of a bill.

By White House count, presidents as far back as Ulysses S. Grant, who served from 1869 to 1877, have sought the line-item veto -- and Congress has objected, because it allows a president to pick and choose among spending items that Congress sends to the White House.

Although details of the proposal remained sketchy, some Supreme Court experts said the new measure might get around judicial objections.

“This might work,” said Mark V. Tushnet, an expert on constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Walter Dellinger, who as acting solicitor general argued on behalf of the Clinton administration in favor of the measure the court struck down, was more certain.

“This is unquestionably constitutional,” he said. “It is possible to construct a constitutionally defensible provision under which Congress would be required to cast a recorded vote on particular items.”

Besides, he said, the president would likely be playing a strong hand by asking Congress to hold back on specific spending.

It would be politically costly for Congress to vote to override a line-item veto, Dellinger said.

In striking down the 1996 legislation, the court voted along non-ideological lines. The conservative chief justice, William H. Rehnquist, voted with the majority; while frequent swing vote Sandra Day O’Connor, liberal Stephen G. Breyer and conservative Antonin Scalia formed the minority.

Supreme Court experts said there was no suggestion how the current court -- with John G. Roberts Jr. replacing Rehnquist and Samuel A. Alito Jr. replacing O’Connor -- would receive any challenge to the legislation.

The politics of the line-item veto makes for unusual teammates.

In 2004, Congress rejected a provision that would have done what Bush says he wants to do: require Congress to vote on recommendations to eliminate specific projects from appropriations bills. The vote was 237-174, with 89 Republicans joining the 147 Democrats and one independent who voted against it.

Bolten was happy to point out Monday that during the 2004 presidential campaign, Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic candidate, proposed a measure similar to that advanced by the White House.

On Monday, the Massachusetts senator said: “It’s no secret that President Bush and I don’t agree on much, but I fully support giving him the line-item veto.” He said he would introduce such legislation.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) objected to Bush’s plan, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said: “President Bush has presided over the largest fiscal turnaround in our nation’s history, turning a projected $5.6 trillion surplus [over 10 years] to a deficit of $3.3 trillion.

“The line-item veto would do little to control deficits,” she said.

And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), while supporting the line-item veto, pointed out that if Bush wanted to curtail earmarks, he could simply refuse to fund many of them.

This is because many earmarks are not in legislation, but in the congressional committee report accompanying the bill. Thus, he said, the appropriations bill this year that funds the science agencies and the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce contains 2,394 earmarks -- 228 of which are in the text of the law.