pocket veto
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A pocket veto is a legislative maneuver that allows a
president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
or other official with
veto A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
power to exercise that power over a bill by taking no action (keeping it in their pocket), thus effectively killing the bill without affirmatively vetoing it. This depends on the laws of each country; the common alternative is that if the president takes no action a bill automatically becomes law.


Barbados

Similarly to India, section 58 of the
Constitution of Barbados The Constitution of Barbados is the supreme law under which Barbados is governed. The Constitution provides a legal establishment of the Government of Barbados, as well as legal rights and responsibilities of the public and various other governm ...
, as amended by the Constitution Amendment Act 2021 (which transitioned the country from a
Commonwealth realm A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state in the Commonwealth of Nations whose monarch and head of state is shared among the other realms. Each realm functions as an independent state, equal with the other realms and nations of the Commonwealt ...
to a
parliamentary republic A parliamentary republic is a republic that operates under a parliamentary system of government where the executive branch (the government) derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature (the parliament). There are a number ...
with its own head of state) states that the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
shall declare his assent to a bill passed by Parliament or withhold his assent. However, much like in India, the Barbadian Constitution does not give a specific time frame for presidential action on a bill sent by the Parliament. Thus, by indefinitely postponing action on a bill, and not sending it back to Parliament, the president could effectively veto it.


Finland

The
President of Finland The president of the Republic of Finland ( fi, Suomen tasavallan presidentti; sv, Republiken Finlands president) is the head of state of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the Finnish Government and the p ...
has the power to pocket-veto bills passed by the
parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
; however, such vetoes are temporary in effect.


India

Article 111 of the Indian constitution states that the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
shall declare his assent to a bill passed by both houses of
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
or withhold his assent, provided that may he return the bill to Parliament for reconsideration. If the President returns the bill, and Parliament passes it once again, with or without any amendments, the President cannot withhold his assent. However, the
Indian Constitution The Constitution of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental r ...
does not give a specific time frame for presidential action on a bill sent by the Parliament. Thus, by indefinitely postponing action on a bill, and not sending it back to Parliament, the president effectively vetoes it.
Zail Singh Giani Zail Singh (, born Jarnail Singh; 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994) was an Indian politician from Punjab who served as the seventh president of India from 1982 to 1987. He was the first Sikh and the first person from a backward caste to bec ...
, the President of India from 1982 until 1987, exercised a pocket veto to prevent the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill from becoming law.


United States

Normally if a president does not sign a bill, it becomes law after ten days as if they had signed it. A pocket veto occurs when a bill fails to become law because the president does not sign it within the ten-day period and cannot return the bill to Congress because Congress is no longer in session. Article 1, Section 7 of the
U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...
states:
If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a Law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a Law.
The Constitution limits the president's period for decision on whether to sign or return any legislation to ten days (not including Sundays) while the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
is in session. A return veto happens when the president sends a bill, along with their objections, back to the house of Congress from which it originated. Congress can override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both chambers, whereupon the bill becomes law. If Congress prevents the bill's return by adjourning during the 10-day period, and the president does not sign the bill, a "pocket veto" occurs and the bill does not become law. Congress can adjourn and designate an agent to receive veto messages and other communications so that a pocket veto cannot happen, an action Congresses have routinely taken for decades. If a bill is pocket vetoed while Congress is out of session, the only way for Congress to circumvent the pocket veto is to reintroduce the legislation as a new bill, pass it through both chambers, and present it to the President again for signature.
James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...
became the first president to use the pocket veto in 1812. Of presidents throughout United States history, Franklin D. Roosevelt had an outstanding number of pocket vetoes, more than anyone before or after him. During his presidency from 1933 to 1945 Roosevelt had vetoed 635 bills, 263 of which were pocket vetoes. All presidents after him until George W. Bush had pocket vetoes while they were in office; the most after Roosevelt was Dwight D. Eisenhower who had 108. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, and Joe Biden are the only modern presidents to not use pocket vetoes. Ten presidents from founding to 1886 did not use this tactic.


Legal status

Courts have never fully clarified when an adjournment by Congress would "prevent" the president from returning a vetoed bill. Some presidents have interpreted the Constitution to restrict the pocket veto to the
adjournment sine die Adjournment ''sine die'' (from Latin "without a day") is the conclusion of a meeting by a deliberative assembly, such as a legislature or organizational board, without setting a day to reconvene. The assembly can reconvene, either in its presen ...
of Congress at the end of the second session of the two-year congressional term, while others interpreted it to allow intersession and intrasession pocket vetoes. In 1929, the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled in the
Pocket Veto Case The Pocket Veto Case (also known as ''Bands of the State of Washington v. United States'' and ''Okanogan, Methow, San Poelis, Nespelem, Colville, and Lake Indian Tribes v. United States''), 279 U.S. 655 (1929), was a 1929 United States Supreme Co ...
that a bill had to be returned to the chamber while it is in session and capable of work. While upholding President
Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
's pocket veto, the court said that the "determinative question is not whether it is a final adjournment of Congress or an interim adjournment but whether it is one that 'prevents' the President from returning the bill". In 1938, the Supreme Court reversed itself in part in '' Wright v. United States'', ruling that Congress could designate agents on its behalf to receive veto messages when it was not in session, saying that the Constitution "does not define what shall constitute a return of a bill or deny the use of appropriate agencies in effecting the return". A three-day recess of the Senate was considered a short enough time that the Senate could still act with "reasonable promptitude" on the veto. However, a five-month adjournment would be a long enough period to enable a pocket veto. Within those constraints, there still exists some ambiguity. Presidents have been reluctant to pursue disputed pocket vetoes to the Supreme Court for fear of an adverse ruling that would serve as a precedent in future cases.


George W. Bush

In December 2007, President
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
claimed that he had pocket vetoed , the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 is a law in the United States signed by President George W. Bush on January 28, 2008. As a bill it was H.R. 4986 in the 110th Congress. The overall purpose of the law is to authorize fundin ...
, even though the House of Representatives had designated agents to receive presidential messages before adjourning. The bill had been previously passed by veto-proof majorities in both the House and the Senate. If the president had chosen to veto the bill, he would have been required to return it to the chamber in which it originated, in this case the House of Representatives. The House then could have voted to override the veto, and the Senate could have done likewise. If each house had voted to override the veto, then the bill would have become law. Then House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi (; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who has served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and previously from 2007 to 2011. She has represented in the United States House of ...
(Democratic representative for California) stated: "Congress vigorously rejects any claim that the president has the authority to pocket veto this legislation and will treat any bill returned to the Congress as open to an override vote."Paul Kiel
"Today's Must Read"''Talking Points Memorandum''
January 3, 2008. Retrieved 2021-04-04
On January 1, 2008,
Deputy Assistant to the President The Executive Office of the President (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The EOP consists of several offices and agenci ...
and
White House Deputy Press Secretary The White House Office of the Press Secretary, or the Press Office, is responsible for gathering and disseminating information to three principal groups: the President, the White House staff, and the media. The Office is headed by the White House ...
Scott Stanzel Scott Michael Stanzel (born January 15, 1973) is an American political advisor who served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy press secretary in the George W. Bush administration from September 2006 to January 2009. After leaving go ...
stated: "A pocket veto, as you know, is essentially putting it in your pocket and not taking any action whatsoever. And when Congress – the House is out of session – in this case it's our view that bill then would not become law." Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar at the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
indicated: "The administration would be on weak grounds in court because they would be insisting on what the Framers decidedly rejected: an absolute veto." By "absolute veto" Fisher was referring to the fact that a bill that has been pocket vetoed cannot have its veto overridden. Instead, the bill must be reintroduced into both houses of Congress, and again passed by both houses, an effort which can be very difficult to achieve. In the end, the House of Representatives did not attempt to override the veto. Instead, in January 2008, the House effectively killed H.R. 1585 by referring the pocket veto message to the Armed Services Committee and passing , a bill nearly identical to H.R. 1585 but slightly modified to meet the President's objection, which subsequently became law. This was not the first time that a president has attempted to pocket veto a bill despite the presence of agents to receive his veto message. Both
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
and
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
made similar attempts, and
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
used it against the
Wade–Davis Bill The Wade–Davis Bill of 1864 () was a bill "to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government," proposed for the Reconstruction of the South. In opposition to President Abraham Linco ...
in 1864.


State legislatures

Across the country, pocket veto powers are not uncommon in committees of state legislatures, which allows a committee to "kill" a bill, sometimes without even a public vote; in Colorado, the power was notably repealed in a citizen initiative constitutional amendment in 1988 driven by various reform groups. When a committee refuses to vote a bill out of committee, a
discharge petition In United States parliamentary procedure, a discharge petition is a means of bringing a bill out of committee and to the floor for consideration without a report from the committee by "discharging" the committee from further consideration of a bi ...
can be passed by the broader membership. The specifics vary from state to state; for example, in 2004, a report found that New York State places more restrictions than any other state legislature on motions to discharge a bill from a committee, which led to subsequent reforms.


Indiana

After nearly a century of pocket vetoes, the
Indiana Supreme Court The Indiana Supreme Court, established by Article 7 of the Indiana Constitution, is the highest judicial authority in the state of Indiana. Located in Indianapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis, the Court's chambers are in the north wing of the Indiana ...
ruled pocket vetoes unconstitutional in 1969. Governor
Edgar Whitcomb Edgar Doud Whitcomb (November 6, 1917 – February 4, 2016) was an American attorney, writer and politician, who served as the 43rd governor of Indiana. His term as governor began a major rift in the Indiana Republican Party as urban Republica ...
requested that the General Assembly pass an act repealing all laws that were enacted because of the Supreme Court decision, some of which were nearly a century old. The assembly complied with the request and passed a blanket repeal.


Other use

Because a pocket veto cannot be overridden, it is sometimes used to describe situations where either one person, or a small group, can override the will of a much larger group without consequence. For example, when the
California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
was answering the
certified question In the law of the United States, a certified question is a formal request by one court from another court, usually but not always in another jurisdiction, for an opinion on a question of law. These cases typically arise when the court before whic ...
of intervenor standing in the case of ''
Perry v. Brown ''Hollingsworth v. Perry'' was a series of United States federal court cases that re-legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. The case began in 2009 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which found that ...
'' (known as the
Proposition 8 Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a constitutional amendment, state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the California state elections, November 2008, Novem ...
case), one of the justices expressed concern that denying appellate standing to initiative proponents would mean that the governor and state attorney general would "essentially get a 'pocket veto.


See also

*
List of United States presidential vetoes In the United States, the term "veto" is used to describe an action by which the president prevents an act passed by Congress from becoming law. This article provides a summary and details of the bills vetoed by presidents. Veto procedure Al ...
*
Recess appointment In the United States, a recess appointment is an appointment by the president of a federal official when the U.S. Senate is in recess. Under the U.S. Constitution's Appointments Clause, the President is empowered to nominate, and with the advi ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocket Veto Law of the United States Veto