“John Marshall has
made his decision,
now let him enforce
it!”
- Quote by President Andrew Jackson about
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall
Line-Item Veto
• A method of vetoing just PART of a bill and
allowing the rest of it to pass into law
• Only applies to SOME STATES (not
Pennsylvania and not the United States
Government)
• The line-item veto has been created to allow
governors to eliminate wasteful spending that
makes its way into bills
• Often, to get a bill passed, extra spending
(sometimes on unrelated issues) is added to
win votes of undecided lawmakers.
How a Line-Item Veto Works
Works just like a regular veto
1. Bill goes through the lawmaking process
2. Once it arrives at the Governor’s desk,
instead of vetoing the whole bill, he/she
selects just the lines or sections of text
he/she thinks are bad and simply vetoes
them.
3. It then goes back to the House and Senate,
where they can override the line-item vetoed
sections by a 2/3 vote in each chamber
Line-Item Veto Practice
• Instead of using a bill, we will use an
Amendment from the U.S. Constitution
(Governors cannot line-item veto their state’s
Constitution nor can Presidents or Governors
actually line-item veto the U.S. Constitution)
• Use Wisconsin rules: DELETE ONLY any
words, letters, spaces or punctuation marks.
• What is left will compress together to form
new words with new meaning
• Be silly or serious, but keep it OK for school!!
If progress is
movement toward
making things
better, then what’s
Congress?
Question: Why was the line-item
veto created?
Answer: To increase the
power of the Governor to
eliminate wasteful
spending.
Question: What is one way in which is
our practice exercise is similar to the
actual line-item veto power?
Answer:
• Allows unwanted text to be deleted
• Did not allow for text to be moved
around
Question: What are two ways in
which our practice exercise is different
from the actual line-item veto power?
Answer:
• Cannot line-item veto constitutions
• No line-item veto for federal power
• MOST line-item vetoes do not allow for
Wisconsin rules: deleting words, letters,
spaces, punctuation marks alone.
• Wasn’t limited to wasteful spending