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Pocket Veto
The authority of the president to ignore bills passed by Congress after the legislature has adjourned. The Constitution specifically mentions the veto, as well as the method to be used for congressional override. However, like much of the Framers' handiwork, minor provisions have evolved over time into major constitutional battles between Congress and the presidency. One of the most heated of these battles has been over what is now known as the pocket veto.
Constitutional Provision
The Constitution gives the president ten legislative days (excluding Sundays) to sign a bill into law or return it to Congress with a veto message. A bill not approved or vetoed by the president becomes law after ten days “unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law” (Article I, Section 7). This provision apparently was meant to make it possible to ward off last-minute actions by Congress that might prove dangerous or foolhardy. The president cannot possibly veto and return bills to Congress as prescribed in the Constitution if Congress already has left for home after adjournment, so the Framers determined that under such circumstances it was better that any bill left unapproved at adjournment simply die.
A pocket veto results from executive inaction, not anything the president does actively, and the term reflects the notion that the president “pocketed” a bill rather than acted on it. A president technically cannot “issue” a pocket veto: the entire situation occurs simply because Congress has adjourned and the bill cannot be returned with a regular veto message. Even so, many presidents have asserted a right to use the pocket veto as if it were an active power of the office.
The first president to rely on a pocket veto was James Madison (1809–1817), in 1812, and only twice more before 1830 did a president pocket a bill. The incidence of pocket vetoes increased thereafter, especially against the many private pension bills passed by Congress in the second half of the nineteenth century. The champion of the pocket veto in absolute numbers is Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945), who pocketed 264 bills, but Grover Cleveland (1885–1889) used the device more frequently (averaging thirty a year in office, compared with Roosevelt's twenty two), largely against the private pension bills for Civil War veterans.
Constitutional Issues
The pocket veto is controversial because Congress and the president often disagree over what constitutes congressional adjournment. The Constitution, as so often is the case, is not clear on this point except for adjournment sine die (Latin for “without a day,” meaning “without a day being set for meeting again”). Adjournment sine die marks the end of a two-year Congress, which itself runs the course of the two-year term of the House of Representatives.
That the pocket veto is constitutional upon adjournment sine die is undisputed; the controversy concerns whether its use is constitutional with other types of recesses or adjournments. Any interpretation narrowing its use to adjournment sine die alone tends to benefit Congress. A more expansive definition magnifies executive power over legislation, because presidents might be able to defeat bills through inaction whenever Congress takes a recess, such as between sessions of the same Congress or during holidays occurring within any single session.
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