LINE-ITEM VETO

In government, the 'line-item veto' is the power of an executive to nullify or "cancel" specific provisions of a bill, usually budget appropriations, without vetoing the entire legislative package. The line-item vetoes are usually subject to the possibility of legislative override as are traditional vetoes.
This power is held by many state governors in the United States of America. All but seven US states have some form of line-item veto. Those states without the line-item veto are Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont.[1]
Article 1, Section 7^[1] of the Confederate States Constitution of 1861 allowed the Confederate president the ability to "approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill," with such disapprovals returned to the houses of congress for reconsideration and potentially for override.
The President of the United States was briefly granted this power by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, passed by Congress in order to control "pork barrel spending" that favors a particular region rather than the nation as a whole. The line-item veto was used 11 times to strike 82 items from the federal budget^{[2] [3]} by President Bill Clinton.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan decided on February 12, 1998, that unilateral amendment or repeal of only parts of statutes violated the U.S. Constitution. This ruling was subsequently affirmed on June 25, 1998, by a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case ''Clinton v. City of New York''.
A constitutional amendment to give the President line item veto power has been considered periodically since the Court ruled the 1996 Act unconstitutional.
Presidents, especially Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), have asked Congress to give them a line item veto power, too. According to Louis Fisher in The Politics of Shared Power, Reagan said to Congress in his 1986 State of the Union address, "Tonight I ask you to give me what forty-three governors have: Give me a line-item veto this year. Give me the authority to veto waste, and I'll take the responsibility, I'll make the cuts, I'll take the heat." President Bill Clinton (1946–) echoed the request in his State of the Union address in 1995.
In 1996, Congress surprised the nation by passing the Line Item Veto Act. The Act allowed the president to strike specific dollar amounts and tax benefits from appropriations bills passed by Congress. Congress could override the line item veto only by passing another bill containing the portions the president had stricken. The new bill would be subject to the normal veto and veto override provisions of the Constitution.
The Line Item Veto Act was a surprise because it shifted power over the annual federal budget from Congress to the president. According to the authors of The Challenge of Democracy, U.S. senator Dan Coats of Indiana said of the Act, "It's Congress's way of saying, 'We've lost control of the spending process."'
The line item veto, however, did not last long. In the case of Clinton v. City of New York in 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the act. The Court said the act violated the Constitution because under the Constitution, the only way for a president to use the veto power is to veto an entire bill. In order to give the president line item veto power, the nation would have to adopt a constitutional amendment. Many scholars, including Louis Fisher, believe the line item veto would give presidents too much power over government spending compared with the power of Congress.

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References

1. Constitution of the Confederate States, Article 1Yale.edu
2. CNN
3. Office of the Federal Register

External links

★ Bush calls for line-item veto - THE WASHINGTON TIMES - March 7, 2006

★ TESTIMONY of Stephen Moore Director of Fiscal Policy Studies The Cato Institute before the Committee on Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives - THE CATO INSTITUTE - March 23, 2000

★ Summary and text of Bush's proposal

★ AboutGovernmentStates.com