Bush Seeks to Fight It Out for ‘Line-Item Veto’ Power

In a move that could set up a massive confrontation with Congress, President Bush is actively seeking to test his power to exercise a “line-item veto” over legislation and letting members of Congress take him to court if they object.

Vice President Dan Quayle, speaking in Chicago, said Monday that Bush is “inclined to do so” if he can find an “appropriate” bill in which to veto individual provisions while signing the rest into law.

Other Administration officials confirmed that Bush has ordered White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray and Budget Director Richard G. Darman to find a test case for a line-item veto.

“It’s something that’s under consideration,” one official said.

A second senior official added: “The President is determined to test this device. He’s been pressing the staff lately to find an appropriate vehicle.”

Most state governors can veto parts of a bill and approve other parts, rather than having to approve or reject the whole thing. But the Constitution gives the President power only to sign a bill or veto it entirely.

Some conservative legal scholars argue that many bills passed by Congress, including many spending measures, are so large and unwieldy, with so many unrelated provisions, that they are not what the Constitution’s writers had in mind. The President should simply treat those bills as many separate pieces of legislation and veto the ones he does not like, these scholars contend.

Bush and former President Ronald Reagan repeatedly sought line-item veto authority from Congress, and Congress just as consistently rebuffed them. A line-item veto would deny Congress one of its favorite stratagems--attaching controversial measures that the President opposes to vital money bills that the President is reluctant to kill.

Just last week, for example, Bush vetoed a massive spending bill for government health and welfare programs because of a single provision that would have allowed public funds for abortions in cases of rape or incest. With a line-item veto, Bush could have approved the money bill while vetoing the abortion measure.

On Monday, the President signed an $11.2-billion appropriations bill for the Department of Interior, saying its benefits “outweigh my reservations” about limitations it includes on offshore oil-drilling preparations. Now, however, Bush has decided that “if the Congress won’t give it to him, he wants to see if he has the authority” to use piecemeal vetoes without further authorization, one of the Administration officials said.

Some White House aides have warned Bush that the expected furor on Capitol Hill would make “the battle not worth the trouble,” the official said. But, he added: “If the President says, ‘Go,’ he’s a consensus of one.”

Legally, experts on both sides of the issue say, the President’s chances of success are, at best, dubious.

“The Constitution does not, itself, define what a bill is,” noted University of Chicago law professor Michael W. McConnell, who worked in the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget under the Reagan Administration.

“It would be a gutsy move” if Bush tried to assert the power, McConnell said, but “I personally think it’s rather unlikely” that the courts would uphold him.

Early in American history, Congress limited bills to one subject at a time, McConnell noted, and when Congress began to tie unrelated items together, presidents strongly objected. Over the years, however, “the presidents by and large gave up,” and it may be too late now to persuade the courts to change the status quo, he said.

Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, who has advised several leading Democrats, offered a similar assessment.

“The fact that Congress doesn’t really know what’s in much of what it passes is a fact of political life,” he said. The courts would be unlikely to allow the President to so greatly expand his power at Congress’ expense, Tribe said.