[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_veuEhhb1658wti0_ZAig66JOyixENU-N9zhjLQSLfOQ.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000031","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/articles\/1\/essays\/32\/pocket-veto\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EPocket Veto\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Article I, Section 7, Clause 2\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIf 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn order to ensure the vitality of the separation of powers, the Framers gave the executive, as James Madison wrote in \u003Ci\u003EThe Federalist\u003C\/i\u003E No. 47, a \u201cpartial agency\u201d in the legislative process. 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. If he does veto the bill, he must return it to Congress, which may then override his veto by a two-thirds vote. By these devices, the Framers set themselves squarely against any absolute veto by the president. 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?\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn order to solve these two problems, the Framers crafted the Pocket Veto Clause. If the president refuses to approve or return the bill within ten days (not including Sunday), the bill automatically becomes law. If, in the interim, Congress has adjourned, the bill dies and the legislation must be reintroduced and passed again when Congress reconvenes. Later termed by Andrew Jackson the \u201cPocket Veto,\u201d the clause has been the subject of much controversy between the president and Congress.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThere is an ambiguity as to what kinds of adjournment the clause covers: (1) \u003Ci\u003Esine die\u003C\/i\u003E 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. There is virtually unanimous agreement that the president may pocket veto a bill when Congress adjourns \u003Ci\u003Esine die\u003C\/i\u003E. 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAs 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 (\u201cthat if any bill shall not be returned\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009within 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.\u201d)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EOther 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. Textually, therefore, it seems that the clause permits the president to exercise a pocket veto any time the Congress as a whole adjourns.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EOn the other hand, advocates for the view that the clause applies only to \u003Ci\u003Esine die\u003C\/i\u003E 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. 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. The advocates for greater congressional authority assert that an intrasession adjournment (and perhaps even an intersession adjournment) does not \u201cprevent a return\u201d as the clause states it. It merely postpones the return until Congress reconvenes. 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EPresident 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). In response to Johnson\u2019s action, the Senate passed a bill regulating the presidential return of bills, excluding intrasession recesses from the definition of adjournment. The bill never made it through the House. That action typifies the history of the dispute. From time to time, members of Congress have sought legislation limiting the president\u2019s use of the pocket veto, but none of these efforts has ever ripened into law.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EMeanwhile, the use of the pocket veto accelerated, bolstered by several attorney general opinions stating that both intersession and intrasession pocket vetoes are constitutional. By 1929, 479 bills had been pocket vetoed, about one-fourth during intersession adjournments but only eight during intrasession breaks. In that year, the Supreme Court decided \u003Ci\u003EThe Pocket Veto\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003ECase\u003C\/i\u003E. During a five-month intersession adjournment, President Calvin Coolidge had pocket vetoed a bill that would have given entitlements to a group of Indian tribes. The tribes sought to claim their rights, asserting that the president\u2019s veto was invalid and that therefore the bill had become law. The Court unanimously upheld the president\u2019s action. It found no constitutional distinction among the various types of adjournment. The president, the Court declared, could not return a bill to a Congress that was not actually sitting. It was Congress\u2019s choice whether to adjourn before the ten-day period could run its course. Further, the Court found \u201cno substantial basis\u201d for the view that a bill constitutionally could be returned to an adjourned house \u201cby delivering it, with the President\u2019s objections, to an officer or agent of the House.\u201d In \u003Ci\u003EWright v.\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EUnited States \u003C\/i\u003E(1938), however, the Court held\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ethat a three-day recess by a single house while the other remained in session did not meet the clause\u2019s definition of adjournment.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EBeginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s tenure, presidential power increased and so did the use of the pocket veto. From 1930 until 1972, seventy-six bills fell to vetoes during intrasession breaks and 143 others during intersession adjournments. Presidents accompanied many vetoes with messages explaining the reason for the rejection. The high point of the congressional attack on Roosevelt\u2019s expansive use of the pocket veto came in 1940. Congress passed a bill that would have revived all legislation previously pocket vetoed during non\u2013 \u003Ci\u003Esine die \u003C\/i\u003Eadjournments of Congress. Congress\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Epassed the measure as a means of asserting that Roosevelt\u2019s pocket vetoes had not been valid. The bill was \u201creturned\u201d as a regular veto by President Roosevelt, and the House failed to override. Subsequently, Congress fell back into acquiescence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe congressional counterattack was renewed during President Richard M. Nixon\u2019s administration, this time through the courts. In \u003Ci\u003EKennedy v. Sampson\u003C\/i\u003E (1974), a federal court declared an intrasession pocket veto invalid and held that the disputed legislation was validly enacted. Two years later another dispute, \u003Ci\u003EKennedy v. Jones \u003C\/i\u003E(1976), produced an agreement\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Ebetween Congress and the president limiting the use of the pocket veto to \u003Ci\u003Esine die\u003C\/i\u003E adjournments.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EPresident Ronald Reagan, however, renounced that agreement and made pocket vetoes during intersession adjournments, even though Congress had appointed an agent to receive a \u201creturn\u201d of the legislation as a standard veto subject to being overridden. One of President Reagan\u2019s pocket vetoes resulted in a suit by members of Congress. In \u003Ci\u003EBarnes v. Kline\u003C\/i\u003E (1985), a panel of the D.C. Circuit, over a dissent by Judge Robert Bork, held that members of Congress possessed standing to bring the suit and that the issue was \u201cjusticiable,\u201d that is, capable of judicial resolution rather than being left to the political branches to decide. The court then held that the Constitution forbids intersession pocket vetoes when Congress has appointed an agent to receive a return. The \u003Ci\u003EBarnes\u003C\/i\u003E court distinguished \u003Ci\u003EThe Pocket Veto Case\u003C\/i\u003E by stating that appointing an agent would be valid if it \u201cwould not occasion undue delay or uncertainty over the returned bill\u2019s status.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Supreme Court vacated the decision as moot, as the law at issue had expired by its own terms. Following the action by the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice declared its opinion that the president\u2019s pocket veto power extends to any adjournment of longer than three days. President George H. W. Bush and President William Jefferson Clinton each used a pocket veto once. President George W. Bush\u2019s administration asserted that the president was entitled to exercise a pocket veto with as little as a three-day recess of the house in which the bill had originated. President Barack Obama has exercised two pocket vetoes, each accompanied by a regular veto of the same bill at the same time. Each time when it returned from its recess, the House of Representatives attempted to override his \u201cregular\u201d veto, solely to show its disapproval of the pocket veto. The overrides failed.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ERepeated attempts in Congress to pass legislation stating its view of the pocket veto power continue to fall short of passage. Thus far, anytime Congress has treated a pocket veto as a regular veto and has scheduled an override vote, the attempt has failed. When presidents now exercise the pocket veto, they typically do so, as did President Obama, with a \u201cprotective return\u201d: a message declaring the objections to the bill so that if, perchance, a court holds the pocket veto invalid, the bill will be treated as vetoed in the regular manner, rather than becoming law by default. Observers have noted that the purposes of the pocket veto and the return veto are so inconsistent that presidents who use the device of the \u201cprotective return\u201d are committing constitutional self-contradiction.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/David_Forte.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/facultyprofile.csuohio.edu\/csufacultyprofile\/detail.cfm?FacultyID=D_FORTE\u0022\u003EDavid F. Forte\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         Professor, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000031-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000031-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000031-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000031-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EButler C. Derrick Jr., \u003Ci\u003EStitching the Hole in the President\u2019s\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EPocket: A Legislative Solution to the Pocket-Veto Controversy\u003C\/i\u003E, 31 Harv. J. Legis. 371 (1993)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp style=\u0022margin-left:16px; text-align:justify; text-indent:-11.95pt\u0022\u003ERobert Neal Webner, \u003Ci\u003EThe Intersession Pocket Veto and\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003Ethe Executive-Legislative Balance of Powers\u003C\/i\u003E, 73 Geo.\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003EL.J. 1185 (1985)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000031-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Pocket Veto Case, 279 U.S. 655 (1929)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWright v. United States, 302 U.S. 583 (1938)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKennedy v. Sampson, 511 F.2d 430 (D.C. Cir. 1974)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKennedy v. Jones, 412 F. Supp. 353 (D.D.C. 1976)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBarnes v. Kline, 759 F.2d 21 (D.C. Cir. 1985)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000031-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000020\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EQualifications and Quorum\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000023\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EAdjournment\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000030\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EPresentment Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000094\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ERecommendations Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000095\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EConvening of Congress\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]