Senators Rebuff Reagan’s Plea, Block Line-Item Veto : Dole Sets Bill Aside After Vote

Spurning letters and telephone lobbying by President Reagan, the Senate today abandoned legislation that would have given him sweeping new veto powers after a third attempt to cut off a filibuster fell two votes short.

Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, after informing Reagan, said “the die is fairly well cast” and pulled the bill from further consideration.

Sen. Mack Mattingly (R-Ga.), chief sponsor of the measure, said the vote “does not signal the end, just the beginning of the next stage of the battle,” but Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) frostily replied that he would fight any new effort to pass the bill.

Hatfield, who called the measure “constitutional madness,” said, “We have stopped one of the most dangerous proposals to come before the Senate in my 19 years.”

Kennedy’s Support

Even the unexpected help of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the President’s first personal lobbying since his cancer surgery failed to muster the 60 votes needed to shut off debate. The third and final cloture motion failed, 58 to 40.

The line-item veto bill would have given Reagan the power to veto specific sections of any appropriations bill. In one letter, the President called the veto measure a “valuable” tool in cutting federal spending. At present, Reagan can veto only an entire bill.

Under the measure, Congress would have retained authority to override the vetoes by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House. The bill would have given Reagan the new veto powers for an experimental two-year period.

Mattingly, claiming that a “clear majority” favors the line-item veto, said he will seek passage again after Congress returns from its August recess by attaching the bill as a rider to some appropriations bill that the Senate will consider in September.

Hatfield Prepared

But such an effort also would be open to a filibuster, and Hatfield said he is fully prepared to give battle.

“We are in an exercise of futility to waste any more of the Senate’s time on this issue,” Hatfield said. “That should have been proven by now.”

Kennedy broke with his liberal allies Tuesday and endorsed the measure. “The budget process is in shambles, the deficit is out of control and Congress is part of the problem,” he said. “Congress has too much control over the purse, and the President has too little.”

His position was the first major indication on the Senate floor that the possible 1988 presidential candidate was moving toward the center of the political spectrum.