5, pp. [The] Constitution provides that the Senate shall keep a Journal of its proceedings, of what it does itself. The legislative veto describes features of at least two different forms of government, monarchies and those based on the separation of powers, applied to the authority of the monarch in the first and to the authority of the legislature in the second.. In support of the position that the adjournment did not prevent the President from returning the bill within the prescribed time, counsel for the petitioners and the amicus curiae urge that the only "adjournment" which prevents the President from returning a bill within the prescribed time is the final adjournment of the Congress, terminating its legislative existence and making it impossible for the President to return the bill for its reconsideration, and that an adjournment of the first session of the Congress does not prevent the President from returning the bill within the prescribed time, since the legislative existence of the Congress is not terminated, and he may within that time return the bill to the House in which it originated, although not then in session, by delivering it, with his objections, to the Secretary, Clerk, or other appropriate agent of that House, to be held by such agent. It is clear, and, as. .

. 1.

In the debate in the Senate, strong opposition was expressed to this feature of the bill on constitutional grounds; [Footnote 11] and. ", That is, it provides in the same phrase, and with no change in definition, that the "House" to which the bill is to be returned is that which. Justia Annotations is a forum for attorneys to summarize, comment on, and analyze case law published on our site. . Ry. [3], In Germany, the term refers to the authority of the Federal Council, which represents the German states, to nullify certain categories of legislation enacted by the Bundestag, the nation's legislature. Certiorari, 278 U.S. 597, to review a judgment of the Court of Claims dismissing a petition upon the ground that a bill passed by Congress, upon which the jurisdiction was dependent, had not become a law. .

On July 3, the first session of the 69th Congress was adjourned under a house concurrent resolution.

. In view of the public importance of the question presented, we granted the petitioners a writ of certiorari. And the Standing Rules of the Senate refer specifically to motions to "adjourn to a day certain" (No. This case presents the question whether, under the second clause in section 7 of Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States, a bill which is passed by both Houses of Congress during the first regular session of a particular Congress and presented to the President less than ten days (Sundays excepted) before the adjournment of that session, but is neither signed by the President nor returned by him to the house in which it originated, becomes a law in like manner as if he had signed it. [Footnote 13] And, in some instances, new bills were introduced in place of those that had not been returned. "If this decision is broadly interpreted, you'll see the largest shift in the process of government that has ever occurred in my lifetime," Levitas said.

And while we have been cited to various decisions of state courts construing similar provisions in state constitutions, an examination of them discloses such a conflict of opinion -- due in some part to differences in phraseology or their application to the procedure of the state legislatures -- that, viewed as a whole, they furnish no substantial aid in the determination of the question here presented, and a detailed consideration of them here would not be helpful. 1, pp. This bill proposes, in the absence of both Houses of Congress to provide a substitute for the House to which the bill is to be returned.
7. 68 Cong.Rec. Nor can we agree with the argument that the word "adjournment," as used in the constitutional provision, refers only to the final adjournment of the Congress. Rec. It does not appear that this suggestion has ever been renewed in Congress. "Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.". And Reagan's predecessor was cheering. In support of the position that Congress, by the adjournment on July 3, prevented the president from returning the bill within the prescribed time, the Attorney General maintains that the word "adjournment" includes an interim adjournment as well as the final adjournment at the end of a Congress; that the words "ten days" mean calendar days, and not legislative days; that the President cannot return a bill with his objections to the House in which it originated except by returning it to the House while in session; that if, by reason of an adjournment taken by Congress within the prescribed time, the House in which the bill originated be not in session on the last of such days and the bill cannot be thus returned, the President is thereby prevented from returning the bill within the prescribed time; and that this view is supported by the practical construction given to the constitutional provision by the President through a long course of years, in which Congress has acquiesced. This same expression was employed by the committee when they provided for the mode in which a bill, once rejected by the president, should be again brought before the legislative bodies. 3. P. 279 U. S. 677. Joseph Cooper, dean of social sciences at Rice University and author of several recent studies on the legislative veto, said detailed legislation could be counterproductive.

Desktop notifications are on   | Turn off, Get breaking news alerts from The Washington Post. It is the duty and the right of the President to communicate to the House, and not to a ministerial officer of the House. [Footnote 7], 4. . importance, in the execution of which it is made his duty not only to sign bills that he approves in order that they may become law, but to return bills that he disapproves, with his objections, in order that they may be reconsidered by Congress. A senior Office of Management and Budget official said yesterday that the administration had anticipated the decision but would be cautious about exercising its new freedom from congressional second-guessing.

Can we constitute our Secretary into the Senate, and can we make the Clerk of the House of Representatives the House for the purpose of doing any official act whatever? . ", Since the bill is to be returned to the same "House," and none other, that is to enter the President's objections. . "[The] Constitution requires that, if the President does not approve a bill, he shall return it with his objections to the House in which it originated; this bill provides a different mode of disposing of that bill in case Congress has temporarily taken a recess or an adjournment.

8725, 8733.

2.

. If the adjournment did not prevent him from returning the bill within the prescribed time, it became a law without his signature; but, if the adjournment prevented him from so doing, it did not become a law.

Under the second clause in § 7 of Article I of the Constitution, a bill which is passed by both Houses of Congress during the first regular session of a particular Congress and presented to the President less than ten days (Sundays excepted) before the adjournment of that session, but is neither signed by the President nor returned by him to the House in which it originated, does not become a law. To that end, a specified time is given, after the bill has been presented to him, in which he may examine its provisions and either approve it or return it, not approved, for reconsideration. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

clearly and aptly stated" by the Speaker, Mr. Reed, in the House, on the passage of the amendment to the Constitution providing for the election of Senators by the vote of the people, as follows: "What constitutes a House? There is nothing whatever to justify changing this meaning by inserting the word "legislative" as a qualifying adjective.

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We think that, under the constitutional provision, the determinative question in reference to an "adjournment" is not whether it is a final adjournment of Congress or an interim adjournment, such as an adjournment of the first session, but whether it is one that "prevents" the President from returning the bill to the House in which it originated within the time allowed. ", A memorandum prepared in the office of the Attorney General showing the results of an exhaustive research of governmental archives for the purpose of disclosing the practical construction placed upon the constitutional provision here involved in reference to so-called "pocket vetoes" was transmitted by the President to Congress in December 1928, [Footnote 12] This memorandum -- the accuracy of which is not questioned -- cites more than 400 bills and resolutions which were passed by Congress and submitted to the President less than ten days before a final or interim adjournment of Congress, which were not signed by the President nor returned with his disapproval. And another senior official, dealing with national security matters, said the first reading of the decision was that future arms sales might still have to be sent to Congress for 30 days' scrutiny, but that Congress could not block a sale by concurrent resolution, because that gave the president no chance to veto the action. .

The practice was common for several decades in the United States at the federal level until the Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional in 1983 in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. . is that it is against the practice of the Government. Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U. S. 139, 117 U. S. 147. This accords with the long-established practice of both Houses of Congress to receive messages from the President while they are in session. .

Y.) Rec. 12. Clause 2 specifically provides that, if the President does not approve a bill, "he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. of Somerset County, 73 Md. pt. They have failed upon repeated occasions, not only during recent years, but far back in former times.
On the contrary, the fact that the word "adjournment," as used in the Constitution, is not limited to a final adjournment is shown by the first clause in section 5 of Article 1, which provides that a smaller number than a majority of each House may "adjourn" from day to day, and by the fourth clause of the same Article, which provides that neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, "adjourn" for more than three days. .

The whole clause looks to speedy action, at all events, upon objections made by the President, and the language employed providing for a return to the House does not imply filing a document with the Clerk or the Secretary when the House is not in session, whether it be the Senate or the House of Representatives. See La Abra Silver Mining Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 423, 175 U. S. 455. 503, 506. Here the usage of the Government of the United States, from its origin to the present day, is that in no single case has a President of the United States, on the return of a bill to the Senate or House of Representatives, ever undertaken to file his message with the Clerk of the one or the Secretary of the other; but the action of the Executive has uniformly been by message sent to the House when in session.