Vetoes

2001-2024 | 23 years

In this episode, the staff are working to try to keep the President’s veto of a bill repealing the Estate Tax from being overridden. Toby and Sam try to work with Democrats to make a deal, but after those Democrats demand too much, they end up making a deal with farm district Republicans to keep the veto from being overridden

After watching this episode, I thought that this episode might be a good one to use to explain what a veto is. So for this analysis, I am going to go back to basics and explain the veto process.

When Congress passes a bill, the President needs to sign it into law before it can go into effect. If a President does not want a law to go into effect, he can veto it. Oftentimes, the threat of a veto is enough to get Congress to change the parts of a bill the President opposes. However, if this is not enough and the bill is still not acceptable to the President, he can veto it.

However, Congress can override a President’s veto. This means that the bill would still go into law despite the President’s veto. To do this, the veto override needs to be passed by a two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Like the threat of a veto, the threat of a veto override can be enough to keep the President from vetoing a bill in the first place. This can be seen at the beginning of the episode when some of the staff were worried that the veto could be overridden and advised that he sign the bill so he didn't look weak if Congress overrode the veto.

In the United States, there is also what is called a “pocket veto”. If the President does not sign a bill into law within 10 days of Congress passing it, the law is normally automatically made law. However, if Congress adjourns within these ten days and the President does not sign it into law, the bill is automatically vetoed. If this happens, then the bill can not be returned to Congress for them to override the veto.

Since George W. Bush became president in 2001, there have been 44 vetoes, all of which were normal vetoes. 6 of these vetoes, or around 15%, were overridden by Congress. The last pocket veto was by President Bill Clinton in 2000 when he pocket vetoed the Consumer Bankruptcy Overhaul Act.