The President In The Legislative Arena

The president in the legislative arena

Intro : → Cha

“All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” (Article I, Section 1, of the United States Constitution). The Founding Fathers wanted to make a weak Executive so a weak president to avoid an other authoritarian regime. So they kept all legislative power for the Congress, and made a president usefull for only foreign policy.

We can wonder what is the part of the President in the Legislative process?

In the constitution the president has no role in the legislative process, but by the practice he managed to earn some.

I- The President, a useless organ in the legislative process by the law

1- Every power belongs to the Congress → Mél

The article I section 7 of the Constitution says that « Every Bill, which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States »this is the illustration of the Checks and balances principle. Since the Senate and the House of Representative have resolved their disagreemennts or joint resolution concerning a bill:The bill is adopted in the same way by both houses. All the original papers signed either by the Speaker of the House of Representative or by the vice president that is the president of the Senate,are transmitted to the enrolling clerk of the originating chamber.

Then the bill becomes “enrolled” and sent to the President of the United States. He signs it : the bill become a law or the president vetoes it : the bill is rejected. So the presidential veto can seem to proove a key role of the president in the legislative arena because « 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. ». But this is an illusion because Congress can act without taking the president opposition into account. Indeed, Congress can override (ignorer) a presidential veto by having a two-third majority vote in both the House of Representatives and Senate. Then, they rewrite the legislation after the veto and send it back to the president for his approval. These vetoed bills have priority compared with the others bills.

Moreover a bill can also become a law without the presidential signature because if he does nothing (neither sign or use his veto) within ten days the bill become a law. This period of days begins on midnight of the day the president receives the measure, and Sundays are not counted.

So the only legislative power given by the Constitution to the president is the veto power, the legislative responsibility is owned by the Congress that introduce and pass legislation. Nevertheless, at the moment he is signing the bill, the president can express a signing statement where he expresses his opinion about the bill, where he explains the purpose of the bill, where he instructs the responsible executive branch agencies on how the law should be administered

Then the Supreme Court can declare it constitutional or unconstitutional.

But Congress also gives powers to the president in time of emergency but if they feel the president steps on their toes they can cut off money and start an investigation. Hence the necessity of

a good relation between the Congress and the president.

2- The Line Item Veto as an example → Val

Since 1996, there is another sort of veto usefull to the president : The Line Item Veto. This Line Item Veto had 3 characteristics :

It is possible after the promulgation of the law, not before when it is a bill

It is concerning only a part of the law, not in full

It deals with financial matter

The Line Item Veto was used first in 1997 by the President Clinton.

During the mid-term election of 1994, the Republican party managed to wrestle both house from the Democrats. It was called the Republican Revolution. On of the master piece of this revolution was the Republican's Contract with America. This contract was a list of action that the Republican party swear to take if they were elected in both houses. One of the most important thing in this list is the Line Item Veto Act to ensure Congressional fiscal conservatism. This act was supported by President Clinton whereas he was a democrat, and this act was not supported by the rest of the Democrat Party.

The Line Item Veto was first attacked by 6 congressmen, but the Supreme Court ruled that this congressmen lacked of standing because there was not a particular harm.

All of this lead to the Clinton v New York City case. The city of New York and some health care organization sued the president Clinton because they presumed that the cancellation of some part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 was injuring them.

The District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, so that the Line Item Veto Act was unconstitutional.

The case went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the Line Item Veto, by allowing the president to cancel or amend parts of statutes violated the article 1 section 7 clause 2 and

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