Three times presidents vetoed bills that passed Congress almost unanimously
Even though President Trump signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act into law last week, agreeing to the sanctions on Russia “for the sake of national unity,” he had previously expressed his opposition and suggested he might veto the bill. With the bill’s almost unanimous and bipartisan support in Congress, a veto would have set up a contentious dynamic between the president and Congress.
That got us wondering: have there been even more clear-cut cases of legislative and executive disagreement on issues that played out through the veto process?
Here are the stories of three notable times that presidents in recent decades vetoed bills with overwhelming congressional support.
Barack Obama: Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act
This bill would have allowed U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments for assistance or funding terrorist attacks. Recently declassified documents provide some evidence potentially indicating Saudi Arabia funding and assistance for the 9/11 hijackers, the primary motivation behind the bill.
President Barack Obama vetoed it, on several grounds. He worried that it could open the U.S. itself up to similar lawsuits from other citizens of other countries, would put restitution for terrorism more in the hands of the judicial branch than the executive branch as he argued it should be, and that it would harm the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia, a partner in helping to combat the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in the Middle East.
“JASTA threatens to reduce the effectiveness of our response to indications that a foreign government has taken steps outside our borders to provide support for terrorism,” Obama wrote in his veto message, “by taking such matters out of the hands of national security and foreign policy professionals and placing them in the hands of private litigants and courts.”
The bill originally passed through “unanimous consent” in the Senate and a voice vote in the House, meaning no record of individual votes were made and no serious opposition was recorded. After Obama’s veto, the veto was overridden almost unanimously 97–1 in the Senate and by a lopsided 348–77 in the House. The bill became law.
George W. Bush: National Defense Authorization Act of 2008
Congress annually passes a bill with the acronym NDAA, which sets defense funding levels and occasionally adjustments to military policy for the upcoming year. A decade ago in 2007, that year’s NDAA passed 370–49 in the House and 90–3 in the Senate.
But President George W. Bush opposed the bill, passed during the height of the debate over U.S. involvement in the Iraq War, on the grounds of a specific part called section 1083. That component of the bill would have frozen Iraqi assets in the U.S., such as the Development Fund for Iraq and Central Bank of Iraq.
“By potentially forcing a close U.S. ally to withdraw significant funds from the U.S. financial system, [it] would cast doubt on whether the United States remains a safe place to invest and to hold financial assets,” Bush wrote in his official Memorandum of Disapproval. “[It] would be viewed with alarm by the international community and would invite reciprocal action against United States assets abroad.”
Bush tried to “pocket veto” the bill, an obscure legislative maneuver in which a president rejects a bill by neither signing nor vetoing it when Congress is not in session. A pocket veto, unlike a regular veto, is not subject to a congressional override. A pocket veto is only permitted under special circumstances, which Bush felt were met — but the Democratic-controlled House disagreed. An unprecedented situation in American history, it looked like the dispute was likely to end up in court.
The scenario was avoided. Very shortly thereafter, an almost-identical NDAA was passed without the provisions Bush objected to. It passed by a lopsided 369–46 in the House, almost unanimously 91–3 in the Senate, and was signed by President Bush without objection.
(GovTrack Insider recently reported about a major debate regarding the fiscal year 2018 NDAA currently being debated.)
Jimmy Carter: Veterans’ Administration Health-Care Program Amendments of 1980
The Veterans’ Administration Health-Care Program Amendments of 1980 was a bill that would, among other things, raise the pay of VA doctors.
The VA had 723 vacancies which they could not fill at the time, which they blamed on their uncompetitive $55,000 pay rate (equivalent to $161,734 today). The bill would have raised that pay rate to as high as $76,200 (equivalent to $224,076 today).
Despite initially passing with large support in Congress, Carter vetoed the bill on the advice of his own Defense Department.
“This legislation would create an unfortunate disparity between the pay scale provided for VA physicians and that for the Armed Services and Public Health Service medical personnel,” Carter wrote in his veto statement. “I am very concerned that, with the passage of this legislation into law, recruitment of needed physicians to non-VA health care systems will be adversely affected.”
Congress disagreed. His veto was overridden almost unanimously 401–5 in the House and 85–0 in the Senate, and the bill became law. It was the first time the Senate had overridden a presidential veto unanimously since 1908 under President Theodore Roosevelt.
Carter faced the ignominy of his veto being overturned by a near-unanimous congressional vote despite both houses of Congress being controlled by his own party. A Democrat, Carter was facing considerable unpopularity among the public in August 1980. Indeed, three months later he would only win six states in his failed reelection bid against Ronald Reagan.
In hopes of avoiding a similar scenario in 2020, Trump may have been practicing smart politics by not rocking the boat and not vetoing the Russia sanctions bill.
Donald Trump and the time he almost vetoed the Russia sanctions
When President Donald Trump signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act into law last week after previously threatening to veto the legislation, it took many by surprise.
Trump had opposed the bill, largely because it would prevent the White House from changing or loosening sanctions on Russia. Yet the legislation — which also included sanctions on North Korea and Iran — passed by near-unanimous margins almost unheard of in the modern era: 419–3 in the House, 98–2 in the Senate.
So Trump signed it despite his misgivings, claiming it was “for the sake of national unity.” Still, he ripped the bill even as he was signing it.
“The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President. This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice,” Trump said in a statement put out by his press office. “I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”
This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.
Like our analyses? Want more? Support our work!
