The Establishment And Operation Of American Presidential Veto Power

The veto power is an important part of American political system, it forms a vital tache of narrow checks and balances system, and embodies a basic principle of American political system - checks and balances principle. It is central in maintaining the system of checks and balances, and the coequality between the executive and legislative branches. It's operation exerts significant influence on American political system. The thesis focuses on the Presidential veto power's establishment and operation.The establishment of the veto power had not only the foundation of theory -checks and balances theory ,but also the models of the history -the veto power of the tribune of the Roman Republic, the absolute veto power of the English king and the colonial governors, the qualified veto power of the state governors .If the President was granted the veto power, which meant to enlarge the President's power. So during the Federal Convention of 1787, the establishment of the veto power underwent some intense debate, which focused on which form the veto power should be taken. After solving this issue, the veto power was established. The regular veto is a qualified veto power, the pocket veto is an absolute veto power, and the President uses the veto power alone.Once the President decided to veto a bill, he must explain the reason why he vetoed it. Moreover, the reason of veto should be persuasive. In the early days, the president mainly emphasized the constitutional reason. After the Civil War, use of the reason of policy increased. Especially after 1930s, the reason of policy became dominant.The operation of the veto power is influenced by a variety of factors, which are the political environment of the president, the political resources of the president and the view of the veto power of the president.In order to gain his ends of using veto, the President should adopt veto strategy. He often regards veto threat and benefit-balancing as veto strategy. For the sake ofavoiding the fault of judgment, the President always consult the executive branch's view of the bill. Referring to the advice of executive branch, then he will decide to veto the bill or not.The President attempted to use the veto power to the highest degree, but Congress wanted to limit it. The veto power's operation was not only full of struggle but also compromise between the President and Congress.The veto power's operation aroused several disputes. The use of regular veto resulted in two disputes: the procedure of using regular veto, and the monarchical nature and proper scope of the veto power. The dispute of Pocket veto focused on two points: one was the legal time of using pocket veto, the other was the legitimacy of Congress authorizing agent to accept returned bill. The dispute of Line-Item Veto was quite intricate, after disputing whether the president should be granted Line-Item Veto or not, the president was granted Line-Item Veto by Line-Item Veto Act of 1996. But in 1998, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court played an important role as a judge in solving disputes, whose rulings would be helpful to keep balance between executive branch and legislative branch.The operation of the veto power exerts momentous influence on legislation. It can deters legislation or revises the legislation.The operation of the veto power expanded the president's power, which accelerates the evolution of the doctrine of separation of power.One side, the operation of veto power harmonizes with constitutional balance. On the other side, it conflicts with constitutional balance.