Line Item Nonsense
Author’s note: Thank you to a number of our commenters for cluing me into this story in the comments of my last piece.
Back in the 1990s there was a whole national debate about whether the president should be given the ability to use a line item veto. The intentions were good at the time. Based on the legislative process, pork was beginning to run out of control. Of course, no one is quite sure when the pork problem really began.
One person’s pork is another person’s bacon. At least that’s what they say. The idea was that the president would veto the parts of bills that were wasteful and leave the good parts of bills intact. It seemed like such a good idea, but the constitutionality came into question. Furthermore, it didn’t seem like such a good idea in retrospect.
The problem is that it gives the executive too much power. The legislative process is like a dance. Legislators get to add stuff they want to any bill and fellow legislators and the executive have to decide whether they want to kill the whole thing to combat the bad additions. It’s a fascinating process for people that are political junkies.
The prospect of bypassing that whole dance to eliminate waste seemed like a good idea at first. Unfortunately, it bypasses the reason for the dance. It gives the chief executive legislative powers and that throws a whole monkey wrench into the separation of powers. Leave it to Greg Abbott to provide a first-hand demonstration of why the line item veto is a bad idea.
Recently, Abbott threatened to veto a portion of the bill that funded the legislature and their salaries. Legislator salaries are barely a thing. It’s more an honorarium than a salary. The biggest losers are the staffers that rely on those salaries to live. They lose all that if Abbott follows through.
The proponents of the line item veto never considered this possibility. Abbott says he is withholding their salaries until they do their job. What exactly does he think their job is? I am just a humble political science guy with but a Bachelor’s Degree in political studies, but it seems to me the legislature is there to pass and reject bills. Isn’t that what they did?
Naturally, that’s not how Abbott sees it. He is angry that the Democrats pulled a maneuver that prevented the voter suppression bill from passing. The governor will have to wait until the special session to keep more Texas citizens from voting. In the meantime, he wants to punish legislators and their staffs for the inconvenience.
In the meantime, we thank the governor for his demonstration. People on both sides of the aisle thought the line item veto was a good idea. It seemed like a creative way to keep spending under control. We never imagined a state or national executive would abuse their power this way. Thank you Greg Abbott for giving us an education.
Emperor Greg…
‘Nero/Abbott was popular with the lower-class Roman/Texass citizens during his time, and his reign is also commonly associated with unrestricted tyranny, extravagance, religious persecution and debauchery.[2][ii][iii]’…’ [his mother, Julia Agrippina, was quite a scheming bitch…]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
1Needs paragraphing.
2The legislators pay is negligible, but did you notice that, with Joan Huffman leading the charge, they are making new hires have a 401K instead of a pension. The pensions are what compensated folks for the low state pay. The next headline will be that no one wants to work for the state!
3In retrospect, pork seemed objectionable, but turned out to be an essential ingredient in sausage-making.
Destroying the ability to reward legislators for compromise by giving them some bacon to take home to their voters turns out to have been an important step leading to our permanent ideological impasse.
The congress should re-instate the use of earmarks as soon as possible.
4@joel hanes – I agree entirely. Without “pork”, how do we reign in someone like Manchin or Synema?
5Forty three states give their governors some type of line item veto. The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for the president in 1998. Presidents got around that with signing statements, declaring they would not enforce lawful legislation in whole or part. That’s an illegal line item veto no matter what you call it.
6Halster @ 7, Good point. And IIRC from Charlie Savage’s book Takeover, signing statements aren’t subject to override, like a veto is.
7Which probably explains the secondary (sub?) title of the book.
The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.
It’s the first time Abbott has done anything close to promoting anything to do with education.
8Anywhere else, for most, this would be the ‘kiss of death’; but here in Texass Emperor Greg will probably get a big bounce [if only would that it be a ‘dead cat bounce’].
Donald Trump endorses Gov. Greg Abbott for reelection:
9https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/01/texas-greg-abbott-donald-trump/