That action typifies the history of the dispute. The bill never made it through the House. In response to Johnson’s action, the Senate passed a bill regulating the presidential return of bills, excluding intrasession recesses from the definition of adjournment. President James Madison exercised the first pocket veto during an intersession, Andrew Jackson exercised the first pocket veto after a final adjournment (prompting an objection from Henry Clay), and Andrew Johnson exercised the first intrasession vetoes (rejecting five bills). Further, many holding this view have also asserted that so long as Congress appoints an agent to receive the return while it is adjourned, the president may not pocket veto the legislation at all. It merely postpones the return until Congress reconvenes. The advocates for greater congressional authority assert that an intrasession adjournment (and perhaps even an intersession adjournment) does not “prevent a return” as the clause states it. Just as the president is not permitted to veto a law simply by not signing it, so should he not be permitted to veto a law simply because Congress has recessed for a few days. On the other hand, advocates for the view that the clause applies only to sine die adjournments hold that the purpose of the Pocket Veto Clause was to permit the president and Congress to continue to engage in the legislative process if at all practicable. Textually, therefore, it seems that the clause permits the president to exercise a pocket veto any time the Congress as a whole adjourns. Other parts of the Constitution refer to adjournments of differing lengths, but the Framers did not particularize which adjournments would or would not affect a pocket veto. Although some members of Congress have disputed the validity of intersession and intrasession pocket vetoes, Congress as a whole has acquiesced in these kinds of presidential pocket veto.Īs a model for the veto power, the Framers used the constitution of the state of New York of 1777 but omitted the section that would have prohibited intersession pocket vetoes (“that if any bill shall not be returned . . . within ten days after it shall have been presented, the same shall be a law, unless the legislature shall, by their adjournment, render a return of the said bill within ten days impracticable in which case the bill shall be returned on the first day of the meeting of the legislature after the expiration of the said ten days.”) There is virtually unanimous agreement that the president may pocket veto a bill when Congress adjourns sine die. There is an ambiguity as to what kinds of adjournment the clause covers: (1) sine die adjournment when a Congress comes to an end, and a newly elected Congress must convene, (2) intersession adjournment between two sessions of the same Congress, and (3) intrasession adjournments when Congress takes a break within a session. Later termed by Andrew Jackson the “Pocket Veto,” the clause has been the subject of much controversy between the president and Congress. If, in the interim, Congress has adjourned, the bill dies and the legislation must be reintroduced and passed again when Congress reconvenes. If the president refuses to approve or return the bill within ten days (not including Sunday), the bill automatically becomes law. In order to solve these two problems, the Framers crafted the Pocket Veto Clause. But what happens if the president refuses to approve or to return the bill to Congress? What happens if Congress adjourns, preventing a return of the bill? By these devices, the Framers set themselves squarely against any absolute veto by the president. If he does veto the bill, he must return it to Congress, which may then override his veto by a two-thirds vote. Under Article II, Section 3, Clause 1, the president can propose measures to Congress, and under Article I, Section 7, Clause 2, the president can approve or veto bills that the Congress must present to him. 47, a “partial agency” in the legislative process. In order to ensure the vitality of the separation of powers, the Framers gave the executive, as James Madison wrote in The Federalist No.
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