Biden's 1st Veto
March 20, 2023- President Biden issues his first veto. He took office January 20, 2021, so we got more than halfway through his term before he vetoed anything.
What explains that? It is not just Biden- it is a trend in the last 3 Presidencies to make far fewer vetoes than their predecessors.
This phenomenon of course is partially a function of the number and types of bills being passed by the various Congresses. They are passing fewer bills these days, and bigger bills- omnibus packages.
With fewer bills and bigger bills, you can see why a President wouldn’t want to lose any of them by vetoing the whole bill. This leads me to my theory of what explains the slowdown in vetoes: SIGNING STATEMENTS. These statements from Presidents “amount to a claim that newly created legal restrictions on the executive branch or president are not binding and need not be enforced or obeyed as written” (Wikipedia).
The rise in signing statements almost perfectly corresponds with the drop in vetoes from George W. Bush’s Presidency on. Presidents have no line item veto- but since George W. Bush they have been stating their intent to not enforce certain parts of bills.
And signing statements have only continued to stack up:
Two problems are inherent in this system: one constitutional, one practical.
I think it is unconstitutional as hell for a President to sign a bill, and say he will not enforce part of it; what about the duty to “take care” that the laws be faithfully executed in Article II? If a President has a problem with a bill, he should have the guts to veto it- especially if he thinks it contains something unconstitutional (that contributes to Judicial Supremacy; “let the lawyers clear up all details” as Don Henley once sang).
Practically, when a President of another party comes to office, he can choose to enforce the parts of bills unenforced by the previous President. That creates a ping-pong of legal enforcement, which adds to the stack of executive orders and other unilateral actions on the Presidents’ desks on the first day. This is no way to govern.
So, good for you President Biden on vetoing your first bill. (When it comes to the policy the veto had to do with- ESG investments- that seems pretty whack, but I’ll let that go). Biden should aim for 5 more, to equal the number of signing statements he has already done.