The Presidential Veto and Override

Article I, Section 7 gives the President ten days, Sundays excepted, to act on a bill presented by Congress. Signing it makes it law. Returning it unsigned to the chamber where it originated, with a message stating objections, is a regular veto. Congress can override a regular veto by a two-thirds vote of those present in each chamber, in which case the bill becomes law without the President's signature. If the President does nothing for ten days while Congress is in session, the bill becomes law automatically. If Congress has adjourned and prevented the bill's return, it dies by pocket veto, which cannot be overridden.

Presidents have vetoed about 2,600 bills since George Washington, and Congress has overridden only around 110 of the roughly 1,500 regular vetoes, about seven percent. Franklin Roosevelt vetoed 635 bills, the most of any President. Several presidents vetoed none. The veto's power lies as much in the threat as the act, since a credible statement that the President will veto a bill often forces Congress to change it before final passage. The veto applies to whole bills. Congress gave the President a line-item veto over spending items in 1996, but the Supreme Court struck it down in Clinton v. City of New York in 1998.

Whether a pocket veto can occur during short recesses, when Congress has arranged for an officer to receive returned bills, is disputed between the branches, and presidents have sometimes issued what they call protective returns to cover both possibilities. Overrides have become rare as parties have polarized, since a President usually needs only the support of one third plus one of a single chamber, typically from his own party, to sustain a veto.