To start off with I'm opposed to this. It's a bad PR move in a series of questionable moves that appears to consolidate too much power in Bush's hands.

However I'd like to clean up the process a bit.

Instead of give the Pres line item veto why can't it be made so that each item has to stand for it's own vote? How could we make this happen...

I think it would clear up a lil of the "behind the doors" moves that happen to scratch each others itchs in Washington.

Maybe we could all contact our reps in the House and the Senate and ask them to push for that instead.

Giving the President, any President mind you, the power to throw out individual items riding with the original bill is simply correcting the effect and not the cause imho.

Fandros

I agree, and this is something that Regan was the 1st President to talk about it openly.
Good ideas should be passed into laws, bad ideas should be line itemed out.

Why even allow them to be attached to other bills tho Sixee?

My point is clean up the process from the start, don't turn it into a political mess after the fact.

Each bill is voted on it's own, each politican will have to vote and have it recorded on that exact item.

Right now we have an initial bill and then we have an untold number of rider bills that are voted on under the initial bills merits.

Fandros

Sounds like a plan. Either Line Item Veto or Single Bills.
Course, trying to get them to pass it, would be like telling them not to vote for another raise.
It just ain't gonna happen, unless they think they'll lose thier jobs over it.

I'm in total agreement. Too much fluff gets to ride too many bills. Let's trim the fat and make everything stand on it's own feet. Would this mire the process? Probably at first, yeah things would slow down. But eventually I'd think people wouldn't want to waste their time with some of the crap that gets passed.

Line item veto was declared unconstitutional by the SCOTUS in 1998 (Clinton v City of New York), the idea being that it impinges on Congress' right to enact statutes. Line item veto sounds good on the surface, but ultimately I think it's more trouble than it'd be worth. I'd rather see Congress police itself on such matters by outlawing the kinds of riders that give us all fits.

1. See above. Unconstitutional.


Good ideas should be passed into laws, bad ideas should be line itemed out.

2. Don't you mean "I won't line item veto the laws of the lobbyists who pander enough to me?"

As Thor pointed out this has been addressed by the Supreme Court, and it is somewhat of a surprise that Gonzalez did not advise the President of this (I am assuming of course that the President was not advised).

The downside to line item veto hits both sides of the aisle; the President would be deciding what legislation gets passed, rather than Congress. I don't want to see Bush have the power to pass only items that coincide with his agenda any more than I would want to see Kerry or Gore or Clinton or McCain have that right.

What the President could do is make a televised speech informing the nation and Congress that no further bills will be signed that contain earmarks not specifically involved with the original legislation; and, if this means a shutdown due to Congress not policing itself, find out how your Congress-person voted and remember that at the next election. He could then also challenge his successor to follow the same process to keep wasteful spending out of government. Such an in your face challenge to clean things up would do more than any bandaid programs Congress has come up with so far.

The problem is that the President owes favors just like the rest of the elected folks, and so it is doubtful this could ever be done.

It's not just wasteful spending I'm targeting here Byl.

Rider bills do all sorts of nasty things we don't hear about till it's too late.

Labor laws, hidden taxes, etc etc are all possible abuses.

Fandros

hidden taxes



Speaking of which, I bet McCain would never have allowed the hidden tax Congress set up to create a new slush fund to get by. I am speaking of the Congressional mandate to the Postal Service to have an escrow account for purposes to be determined later, which forced a 2cent stamp increase.

(We may have needed to raise stamps to pay for the gas increases, but the escrow fund is simply a tax/postal increase to create a new fund, since Social Security is no longer as easily tapped)

Good point man, but to be honest with all the countless riders attached anymore is it anywonder so many slink through that are flat out stinkers?


Fandros

"is somewhat of a surprise that Gonzalez did not advise the President of this"

Good grief, give the guy a little bit of credit. Yes, the S.Ct. ruled the line item veto unconstitutional. I actually did my law school "dissertation" on the topic before it got to the S.Ct.

The difference, from what I understand, of the new proposal is that if the President vetoed a portion of the bill, it would require both houses to revote on the bill with the portions taken out.

As you know, the constitution sets forth a very simple procedure for passing bills. Both houses approve by majority and the President signs to enact a law. Under the Clinton line item veto, the President had the power to enact a law that had not been approved in whole by both houses. That was essentially the constitutional flaw. Under the new proposal, any law passed (even with the line item veto) would have the approval of both houses and the President. I believe that should cure the issues with the previous law.

From what i read about it, i cant beleive i am going to say this, I like the concept.

If i read it correctly, President says "nope to line 15" and then congress has to revote on that particular item of the bill. I like it, certain items can be reargued, or brought more to the forefront of public debate.

I like the idea of Congress grinding to a halt.
And I also like the idea of people holding thier Representatives and Congressmen's feet to the fire on issues like this.
The only problem is, people generally are more interested in who got voted off of Survivor or who is winning American Idol than politics.

I like the idea of Congress grinding to a halt.
And I also like the idea of people holding thier Representatives and Congressmen's feet to the fire on issues like this.
The only problem is, people generally are more interested in who got voted off of Survivor or who is winning American Idol than politics.

Sad to say, this is so very true. Other than when paying for a tank full of gas, or seeing their monthly bills get higher, too many people pay little or no attention to what is happening on the political front in their country.

OMG, I agreed with Sixee:eek:

LOL, hey, just because I come from a Conservative stance, doesn't mean I'm wrong ALL the time.
Sometimes a good idea is a good idea, regardless of where it comes from.
Liberal Ideas are good in a time of peace, but Conservative Ideas are good in a time of War.

This is a interesting subject. There are two sides to this that I see and I am not sure that there is a real good answer. First lets look at what I see as positives to this:

1) Individual line veto's that get sent back to Congress might not be a bad thing. They can always revote to pass it, and this time it would not be under threat of not passing the Defence budget (for example).

2) It would help halt the delay of passing important budgets that get held up because the President has to Veto the Whole thing just because he does not like the 1-5 little things.

3) I also think it would help illuminate a already large problem with what Fandros was trying to say. There needs to be a way to individualize the bills, and not lump sum them. If the President veto's line by line, the people out there would get more press coverage on some of the piddly shit that gets passed each year.

Negatives:

1) Regardless of who the President is, it opens the door for obstruction and abuse of personal beliefs.

2) It is a "finger in the dyke" fix for a much larger problem.

Overall, I think there needs to be some type of line item, whether it is every piece of pork needs to be individual, or someone has the power to do it. But passing a defense budget that also gives $10,000 to help buy Vasaline for the Institute of Cronic Masterbation, is a bunch of crap.

I read somewhere that most state governors have a line item veto.... can someone corroborate this?

In my state, the governor has line item veto and when it was first given to the governor, most folks thought it would be giving him too much power. It has actually worked out to be a good thing. The state congress has become more cautious about how they write bills and proposed legislation. They found that it actually made them do their jobs... instead of piggy-backing stuff into a desired bill, they had to let the item stand on it's own merit.

This has caused some minor issues along the way, but our fiscal spending has become more responsible and nobody gets to add pork barrel items to legislation.

Would it give a president too much power? Only if Congress tries to continue to do things the way they have been in the past.

I don't think it's "most state governors," but quite a few do have LIV power. One good that might come out of such a measure is a requirement (already proposed) that a given period of time pass between the bill's final form being brought to the floor and the vote on that bill. Current proposals include 3 days and an unlikely idea in which the bill is actually read on the chamber floor (talk about grinding Congress to a halt!). This would put an end to the currently too common practice of bringing 800 page bills to vote mere hours after being released from committee. It also gives time to look for chicanery (e.g., Hastert and Frist's embedding of pharmaceutical protection language into a defense bill after the committees had already voted on them).
The difference, from what I understand, of the new proposal is that if the President vetoed a portion of the bill, it would require both houses to revote on the bill with the portions taken out.
I haven't written any dissertations on the subject, but at first glance this would seem to circumvent the previous constitutional objections.

Again this is just a fix to the effect. We need to fix the cause and totally revamp how bills are voted on.

Only the original bill and those directly pertaining to it are allowed to be voted on as a unit.

Fandros

Again this is just a fix to the effect. We need to fix the cause and totally revamp how bills are voted on.

Only the original bill and those directly pertaining to it are allowed to be voted on as a unit.

Fandros

A very noble thought and definitely full of good intentions, ideas, and philosophies (as much of the debate here is). But the question is how? How do you change a process so engrained in our legislature? Where would you begin? Something like this is more than just writing to your Congressman it would need huge support and as others have already pointed out most of our countrymen care more about American Idol votes than how their country is being ran :(

Maybe Bills should get spokesmodels to sponsor them....
That would get more people interested in politics...or at least in watching C-span to watch the Bikini portion of the vote... :D

Aye Fil therein lies my consternation.

I have not a clue how to go about enacting my initial desire here. I've long been an opponent of how bills/rider bills roll out of Washington. And like other things I'd like to see changed there has yet to be an politician who'll take up the banner and run with it....

Fandros

"Riders" is quite possibly my biggest issue with our political system, i hate it more than i hate King George, an thats a lot...

Bills should be single, or if group together be interconnected. I.E. passing a education bill that has some educational grant bills attached the bill. That just cuts down on time needed to pass related bills. But some of them are rediculous. Wish i could find the article but congress passing raises on themselves has been attached to some interesting things.

I found it.. finally...


For example, 43 states grant their governor some form of line item veto authority. All but one state have balanced budget requirements of one kind or another.

http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-moor2.html

If 43 states provide some form of line item veto... the President of the United States should be afforded the same consideration. I don't think it is the end-all and be-all answer we are looking for, but it would help. The testimony is a long read, but it discusses the issue from a pro-line item veto stance.

If 43 states are doing this on what grounds is it considered unconstitutional on the federal level?

They could easily have changed what people have referred to here - the bill gets sent back to the state House and Senate.

it's entirely possible that they simply haven't been challenged up to the supreme court from some of those states, though I would bet it's more likely that they are similar to the proposed change here.

I am not sure if Minnesota has this, due to the many attempts by the MCCL (anti-abortion organization) that has been able to get there proposed legislation added into other bills (education, health, etc.) that has killed those bills from getting passed. A line-item veto would have allowed them to be stripped from the bills.

But that does raise another element of this issue, and that is not necessarily wasteful spending but ideological add-ons to some bills. If you are considering signing off on an education bill that provides needed improvements to local education systems, and the hiring of more teachers, and expanding the meals programs to ensure that no child goes without a lunch at school, and increasing the medical staff available to school districts to accomodate today's new maladies, and you suddenly come across a couple lines that state changes to the state parent notification law in cases of abortion, you no longer would have to veto the entire bill, or call a special session to return the bill for further discussion to eliminate language not pertinent to the education funding. A president could use that power much more than a governor, as the issues effect are now nation-wide versus state-wide.

(The above example actually occurred here some years back, creating quite the upset with a large number of people)

If 43 states are doing this on what grounds is it considered unconstitutional on the federal level?
State constitutions != US Constitution.

State constitutions != US Constitution.

I realize that Thor ;)