140 Congressional politics
would veto them if he could. In 1996, however, the Republican-dominated
Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act, which authorised the president to
cancel individual spending items in Bills. A complex procedure made it pos-
sible for Congress to reinstate the vetoed item, but if the president persisted
in this course of action in the end it would necessitate a two-thirds majority
of both Houses to override his veto. The introduction of a line item veto had
been discussed for over a century, and in 1984 President Reagan called for a
constitutional amendment to this effect. It was also included in the Contract
with America that the Republicans made the basis of their congressional
election campaign of 1993. Ironically, it was the Democratic President Clin-
ton who had the first opportunity to exercise the line item veto. In August
1997 Clinton vetoed three spending items totalling over $600 million, and
the opposition to the new veto power grew. In February 1998 a Federal Dis-
trict Court declared the Line Item Veto Act to be unconstitutional, and this
judgement was later confirmed by the Supreme Court, thus returning to the
situation where the president must veto the whole Bill or allow it to become
law.
Presidential vetoes can be overridden if both Houses of Congress pass the
Bill again by a two-thirds majority of each House. Only a small proportion of
presidential vetoes are overridden, because the president can usually expect
to muster over one-third of the votes in each House of Congress. Another
weapon in the congressional armoury is the so-called ‘legislative veto’, which
was adopted by Congress in order to exercise greater control over the execu-
tive branch of government. Many statutes incorporated provisions that gave
authority to one or both of the Houses of Congress to overrule particular de-
cisions made by government agencies under the legislation. For example, in
1974 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) exercised its discre-
tion to allow an East African Asian, Jagdish Chadha, to remain in the United
States although his visa had expired. The Act that the INS was administering
contained a legislative veto provision, and the House of Representatives over-
ruled the decision and ordered Chadha to be deported. Members of Congress
who were anxious to combat the power of the administration inserted more
and more such provisions into legislation, and Congress gave authority for
one House, both Houses, or even a congressional committee or the chair
of a committee to overrule individual decisions of a regulatory agency or
department. Presidents, of course, resisted the use of the legislative veto,
and asserted that it was unconstitutional. In 1983 the Supreme Court in the
Chadha case held the legislative veto to be unconstitutional, but it did not
prevent the Congress from continuing to make use of similar provisions to
control the actions of the administration.
This, then, is the complex legislative procedure of Congress. It can be seen
that it allows a great deal of freedom to individuals and groups in Congress
to affect the outcome of the legislative process. True, most important legisla-
tion originates with the administration, although not all of it. But Congress
retains the power to refuse to pass legislation or to amend it significantly