Decoding the Veto: Understanding the President’s Power to Say “No” to Congress

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A presidential veto does not always kill a bill. In a regular veto, the president sends the bill back to Congress with objections. Lawmakers can still enact that bill, but they need two-thirds approval in each chamber. The veto gives the president a powerful check while leaving Congress a way to insist on its decision.

Congress did so in 2016 with a bill opening a route to certain terrorism-related lawsuits against foreign governments. President Barack Obama rejected the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, but Congress overrode him.

Why a veto is powerful but not always final

The terrorism law opened a path to damages suits against foreign states for specified injuries or deaths in the United States caused by international terrorism and a foreign state’s wrongful acts. The immediate consequence was access to a court, not a ruling that a particular foreign government owed compensation.

Obama vetoed the bill on September 23, 2016. His veto message warned that foreign governments could respond by allowing suits against the United States and U.S. officials for alleged injuries overseas linked to American support for third parties.

On September 28, 2016, the Senate and House overrode the veto. The Senate voted 97 to 1, and the House voted 348 to 77.

The president’s choices when a bill arrives

The Constitution requires a bill that has passed the House and Senate to be presented to the president before becoming law. What reaches the president is the enrolled bill, the final copy passed by both chambers in identical form and authenticated by their officers.

Ordinary joint resolutions follow the same lawmaking path as bills, requiring both chambers to approve identical text and presentation to the president. Joint resolutions proposing constitutional amendments and concurrent resolutions do not require presidential signature. A simple resolution concerns matters within one chamber’s authority, such as its own standing rules. The form of a measure therefore determines whether it goes to the president at all.

The president can approve the bill by signing it. The Constitution gives the president ten days after the bill is presented, not counting Sundays, to decide. The clock starts when the bill is presented, not when Congress takes its final vote.

For a regular veto, the president returns the bill with objections to the chamber in which it originated. That chamber records the objections in its journal and reconsiders the bill.

If the president does not return the bill within those ten days, it becomes law without a signature unless Congress’s adjournment prevents its return. Inaction can therefore produce a law. It stops one only when an adjournment prevents the bill’s return, which is known as a pocket veto.

How Congress overrides a regular veto

The override process begins in the chamber where the bill originated. If two-thirds approve, that chamber sends the bill and objections to the other chamber, where another two-thirds approval makes the bill law. Both decisions are needed, so an overwhelming vote in one chamber cannot compensate for insufficient support in the other.

The required margin is two-thirds of members voting, with a quorum present, rather than two-thirds of the chamber’s total membership. A quorum is the required number of members present for a chamber to conduct business.

Override votes must be recorded as yeas and nays, with the names of those voting for and against entered in each chamber’s journal. Each lawmaker’s position on an override is therefore on the record.

Neither chamber is required to schedule an override vote, and a successful override must occur before the end of the Congress that received the veto. A Congress lasts two years and usually includes two legislative sessions. A veto may stand because lawmakers cannot assemble enough support or because they choose not to test it in a vote.

When the House fails to override a veto of a House bill, the bill and veto message go to committee and the Senate is informed. A vetoed bill cannot be amended in the House or in a committee after referral. The override vote is on the rejected text as it stands; a revised compromise calls for a new legislative decision.

Why a pocket veto cannot be overridden

A pocket veto occurs when the president does not sign or return a bill within ten days, excluding Sundays, and Congress’s adjournment prevents its return. Under that constitutional exception, the unsigned bill does not become law. Congress cannot use the regular override procedure to reverse a pocket veto. To pursue the legislation, lawmakers must reintroduce it as a new bill, pass it through both chambers and present it to the president again.

In The Pocket Veto Case, decided in 1929, the Supreme Court held that a bill presented less than ten days before the first session of a Congress adjourned, and neither signed nor returned, did not become law. In that case, the adjournment that ended the first session prevented the bill’s return, even though the Congress itself, which meets in more than one session, had not ended.

In Wright v. United States, decided in 1938, the Supreme Court found that a brief Senate recess did not prevent return: the Senate’s organization remained intact, and its secretary could and did receive the bill. So not every break in Congress allows a pocket veto: being away is different from being unable to receive a returned bill.

The House Practice manual says a constitutional debate still lingers over when a president may use the pocket veto during some kinds of adjournment, with the executive and legislative branches sometimes taking different views. Those disputes concern adjournments between sessions and breaks within a session, including situations in which Congress has authorized officials to receive presidential messages. For a disputed adjournment, the decisive issue is whether return was prevented under the Constitution, not simply whether the president called the action a pocket veto.

Why the president cannot veto just one provision

The constitutional return veto applies to the entire bill before it becomes law, rather than selected provisions. A president who supports most of a bill must still accept or reject the package as a whole.

The Line Item Veto Act allowed presidents to cancel certain spending provisions or targeted tax benefits after those provisions had been signed into law. In Clinton v. City of New York, decided in 1998, the Supreme Court held that the Act’s cancellation procedures violated the Presentment Clause, the constitutional rule governing how passed bills are submitted for presidential action. The Court said the cancellations before it had, in legal and practical effect, amended two acts of Congress by repealing a portion of each. The defect was in the lawmaking procedure, not merely in which spending or tax provisions a president chose to cancel.

The Court distinguished a return of the entire bill before enactment from a cancellation of part after enactment. Congress and the president cannot use an ordinary statute to give the president a different final text from the one that completed the constitutional process.

Vetoes shape bargaining before a bill reaches the White House

The Congressional Research Service explains that a veto threat can sometimes cause Congress to modify legislation before presenting it to the president. The veto’s influence can therefore appear in the bill that reaches the White House, not only in the bill that comes back. A compromise made before presentation can avoid the much harder contest over an override.

Statements of Administration Policy are written communications conveying administration views on bills, and may state a presidential veto threat or a recommendation from advisers to veto. A recommendation to veto signals opposition, but it is not yet a veto.

A president’s objections can concern what a bill would do, not only whether Congress had constitutional authority to pass it. Policy disagreements have a long history: Andrew Jackson’s July 10, 1832, veto of the bank recharter bill rested on political, economic and moral grounds as well as constitutional objections.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s record shows both kinds of veto at work: he vetoed 635 bills, including 372 regular vetoes and 263 pocket vetoes, and Congress overrode nine. Only a regular veto can be overridden, so the 263 pocket vetoes gave Congress no override vote to take.

The Senate’s veto record identifies the bill, veto date, presidential-message document and outcome, including override dates and vote counts. To track a particular dispute, read the bill’s veto message and the recorded action in each chamber.