Trump says he will veto a spending bill without $5 billion for a border wall. Doesn’t congress have enough votes to override such a veto? The House passed a bill along party lines that includes the money but it will almost certainly not pass the Senate.
Do Republicans not have the political will to override a veto for the sake of keeping the government open?
Last time it happened was in 1982. It’s very difficult.
The most recent override of a veto was in 2016:
We’re talking about the appropriations bill.
it’s a tricky thing, they might have the reason to veto based on the issue, but the other factor is the rebuke of the president which may be the line they will be unwilling to cross, and what that means for disunity of the party, plus Trump may try to get revenge somehow and they have to decide if they are willing to challenge him on that basis. Personally I would love to see them override Trump’s veto, but I can’t see them doing that.
Not too surprising, when you consider the circumstances needed for a veto to come up. You have to have supermajorities in both houses in favor of something, but also a President who’s opposed to it. Since the President was elected within two years of any given member of either house also being elected, that probably means that you had to have some major shift in the electorate in a very short time. And even in that situation, everyone probably knows that they’re in that situation, so you’d need either a President who felt strongly enough to issue a veto that he knew would be overridden, for the sake of political appearances, or who couldn’t count accurately enough to know that it would be. And the Constitution already provides for a way for a President to express his displeasure with a bill while still letting it pass, by just neither signing nor vetoing it.
CookingWithGas, to over-ride the President’s proposed veto, you would need at least enough Republican House members who would vote with the Democrats to over-ride the veto. That would have to be roughly one-third of the conference (I’m not interested enough to run the actual numbers). If you really think that one-third of Republican Congresscritters are willing to over-ride a veto from a Republican President, you need a sanity check. They might as well sign their political death warrants.
Besides, it’s not like they are upset about a government shutdown. One Republican Congressman, from PA, who barely survived this last mid-term election, has already made it clear that he doesn’t believe it’s a big deal, since no one really lives paycheck to paycheck, yanno? They eventually will get paid, so what’s the big deal? :rolleyes:
If I did the math correctly, they need all Democrats & Independents plus 93 House Republicans and 18 Republican Senators to vote to override the veto.
That’s for the 115th Congress. After January 4, the number changes quite a bit.
Some Republicans might decide that a long shutdown is suicide for the party. Given choice between suicide by torture, or by shooting, then might choose the latter. If the shutdown happens tonight and congress adjourns then nothing can happen until Jan. 2 and it might take a long time to find a solution. Even if Congress were to pass a bill (they haven’t) and Trump neither signed nor vetoed it, it would still take ten days to become law.
It seems the Republicans have no path to a clear win here. They can
[ul]
[li]Rebuke the president by presenting a bill that they know he will veto then override a veto, which ain’t gonna happen[/li][li]Let the government shut down, which they will be blamed for, although to me the political consequences of that are unclear, and continue to negotiate a compromise bill that will make nobody happy[/li][li]Spend $5 billion on a wall that they don’t want and that most Americans don’t want[/li][/ul]
Right now the 3rd option requires 9 Senate Democrats to agree to it, so it’s not really an option. After January 3 they need only 7 Senators, but they’ll lose the majority in the House so they’ll also need 18 House Democrats to agree to it.
Refresh my memory on Civics 101: Is it possible for the House to pass a bill now, and then for the Senate to pass the same bill in January, thereby making it law? Or does the new Congress coming in automatically negate any bills currently pending?
I thought that if the House passes it, it automatically goes to the Senate for consideration. I can’t think of any mechanism that would allow them to pass it then sit on it.
The House wouldn’t sit on it but the Senate could.
Moved to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Well, he says he’ll veto it, but I daresay there is sufficient evidence that Trump is about as capable of telling the truth as guinea pigs are of earning postgraduate degrees in film studies, so maybe this is a bluff worth calling.