Is Pelosi Planning on Picking Bush’s Pocket?
Remember Bush’s surly claimed pocket veto on military pay raises, just in time for New Years? We pretty much dismissed its claim to legality when it happened (See especially PhoenixWoman’s link, which has gotten far too little attention for its apparent precedent on precisely the issues in question). But now I’m increasingly intrigued by the political possibilities, particularly with the news that Speaker Pelosi is calling bullshit on Bush’s claim to have used a pocket veto specifically to reject the bill.
The White House on Monday said it was pocket-vetoing the measure, but a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the president cannot use such a measure when Congress is in session. The distinction over whether the president can pocket-veto the bill is important because such a move would prevent Congress from voting on an override.
“Congress vigorously rejects any claim that the president has the authority to pocket-veto this legislation, and will treat any bill returned to the Congress as open to an override vote,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi. He said the Speaker is keeping all legislative options on the table. [my emphasis]
As soon as Bush announced he planned to veto the bill, I grew enticed by what some of those "legislative options" might be–and Nancy’s cry of "bullshit" makes me even more enticed.
As I see it, if Congress insists that Bush could not have pocket vetoed the bill, then the first thing it should do is aim for an override. As the Hill points out, Democrats are likely to lose the huge majorities who supported the bill last month. But if they can credibly show that they might be able to override Bush’s veto, things would get interesting.
See, I believe that Bush has now placed Democrats in the position he has tried to place himself in with his threat to veto all the appropriations bills. That is, if Bush vetos the appropriations bills, then that’ll put the Democrats in a position where they need to negotiate quickly, or risk shutting down the government (Kagro X laid this all out in a couple of posts last September, but I can’t seem to find them right away).
The position Democrats are in now is similar: They can do a whip count, and if they’ve proven they have the votes, then can threaten to simply override the veto and negotiate from there.
Or, more tantalizingly, they can re-open the whole Defense Appropriations bill. All of it. Read more →