What a wild turkey tells us about Washington -- April 28, 2022 column

 By MARSHA MERCER

A wild turkey is terrorizing people on a bike trail in the District of Columbia. Several runners and bicyclists report being menaced by the angry bird.

“There’s actually a pretty healthy turkey population in D.C. and the surrounding areas,” Dan Rauch, a wildlife biologist with the district’s department of the environment, told NBC 4 in Washington. “There’s at least a hundred, maybe even two, here in the District.”

Oh, come on. Everybody knows there are more turkeys than that in Washington.

At least that’s what the polls say. President Joe Biden and Congress both suffer from rock-bottom approval ratings. Only about 40% of people approve of the job Biden is doing, and Congress’s approval rating is even lower.

Only about 25% approve of the job Congress is doing, according to the latest Real Clear Politics poll average. Slightly more – but only slightly – think the country is moving in the right direction, about 30%, according to RCP’s poll average.

The rampaging turkey looks diligent compared with the do-nothings in Washington.  

It’s spring, but in the nation’s capital it feels like the dark days of fall – as in election season. The midterms may be six months away, but Democrats and Republicans are so busy attacking each other they can’t get anything accomplished.

The country is awash with problems – inflation, the pandemic (still with us) and the crisis at the border, chief among them. Government is supposed to solve problems, or at least try, but Democrats keep fighting among themselves and Republicans, who smell electoral blood in the water, won’t lift a finger to help.

Biden has failed to deliver on much of his agenda. Hardly anyone even mentions voting rights legislation anymore, even though more than a dozen states have passed more restrictive voting laws.

The Build Back Better package – scaled down from Biden’s original $4 trillion proposal to about $2 trillion – appears doomed, although some Democrats still hope to salvage about $1 trillion. They disagree about what should be their priority – maternal and child health, pre-K education, a child tax credit, clean energy measures – and about what can pass.

Nearly every day the news about the environment worsens: “megadrought” in California, wildfires, water shortages, and yet, again, nothing happens in Washington.

It always comes back to: What does Joe want? A spokesman for Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Monday he was agreeable to boosting energy production, lowering prescription drug costs and raising taxes on the rich, The Washington Post reported. But Manchin himself told reporters Tuesday there’s no formal agreement.

“I want to make sure ya’ll understand: There’s no false hopes here,” said Manchin, who also continues to hold out for fully paying for the package, a sticking point.

Manchin says he will run for re-election in 2024, so there’s no downside in his red state for his opposing Biden’s agenda.

Congress failed to pass aid to buy more coronavirus vaccines and treatment before leaving on spring break. Now, more aid for Ukraine is also in doubt, as Republicans warn they won’t allow Democrats to include coronavirus aid in the Ukraine package.

Republicans want a vote on lifting Title 42, the controversial Trump-era measure that allows the Department of Homeland Security to “expel” migrants at the border without allowing them to apply for asylum. The administration contends the emergency measure, a public health order, is no longer needed and planned to lift it May 23.

A federal judge in Louisiana has blocked the administration from phasing out the restrictions before May 23. Border crossings are up and are expected to surge even more.

Washington almost never blames itself for anything, so it was surprising to hear Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan, lash out at both political parties.  

“Our immigration system is broken,” she declared at a hearing Wednesday. “Democrats and Republicans own that. Right now, Democrats have the House and Senate and White House and have done nothing to get comprehensive immigration reform.

“Four years ago, Republicans had the House, the Senate and the White House and did nothing” on immigration reform. Imploring her colleagues to introduce legislation to make the border situation better, she said: “Don’t just use it as a political cudgel.”

But they will. No wonder people are so grumpy.

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Hope springs for near-normal times -- again -- March 24, 2022 column

By MARSHA MERCER

We attended a concert last Saturday. The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra performed in a nearby church, and we walked over with neighbors on a mild spring evening.

It seemed like the Before Times – except that nearly everyone at the sold-out event wore masks and was supposed to be fully vaccinated.

I tried to remember the last time I’d sat in a room full of people, listening to live music – or, for that matter, in a church. The coronavirus robbed us of so many shared experiences we once took for granted.

Bach and Vivaldi are good for whatever ails, and the Ukrainian folk song the orchestra added to the program was haunting. I blinked back tears.

After two years of isolation, cancellation, fear and death, people are venturing out again. Concerts, festivals, sports and spring break travel are back. Thousands of maskless visitors swarm the Tidal Basin in Washington to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

And yet, while Putin’s vicious war in Ukraine has kicked the pandemic off the front page, the pandemic is not finished with us yet.

The orchestra’s website carries this dose of reality for concert attendees: “You understand that you may contract the virus . . . you agree that you understand the risks of COVID-19 exposure, the potential consequences of exposure, and you voluntarily assume the risks of attendance.”

Besides that, enjoy the show.

The good news is COVID-19 cases have declined significantly in the United States, although about 1,000 people every day die of the insidious disease. Most at risk of hospitalization and death remain the unvaccinated.

 With cases low and people out and about, it feels like the hopeful days of last spring, when President Joe Biden proclaimed a “summer of freedom.” Prematurely. Summer brought the deadly Delta variant. Then came Omicron.

Today, about 35% of new coronavirus cases in the United States are attributed to the new, highly transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It seems to cause less severe illness than previous strains, and vaccinations and boosters help immunity, although their effectiveness does wane.

We’ve not yet seen a surge in BA.2 cases as is occurring in Europe, and it’s not certain we will. The World Health Organization Tuesday blamed the increase in countries like Britain, France, Germany and Italy on their lifting COVID restrictions too “brutally.”

Most places here have also ditched mask requirements, and social distancing is mostly a memory. High-profile positive COVID-19 tests make news: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, second gentleman Doug Emhoff and White House press secretary Jen Psaki, among others.

Almost everyone I know has -- or has had -- COVID-19. Thankfully, their cases have been mild. No one can predict what mutations lie ahead or how they’ll affect us in the moment or later.

The Biden administration wants Congress to approve $22.5 billion in emergency COVID funds to purchase more vaccines and treatments. A second booster for those over 65 may be available this spring, but the administration says it lacks funds to stockpile enough boosters and treatments for everyone, should they be needed in a fall surge.

Republicans contend unspent, previously allocated COVID relief funds should be used first. The administration says it is difficult to redirect such funds.

Each person can order free, at-home COVID tests online. A household is eligible to receive two sets of four tests. Check out https://www.covidtests.gov/

Former CDC director Tom Frieden wrote an essay in The New York Times Tuesday titled, “The Next Covid Wave Is Probably on Its Way,” arguing we should use this lull to prepare.

First and foremost, get vaccinated and boosted. Some 60% of Americans are not up to date on their COVID vaccinations. That’s 15 million seniors at higher risk.

If you are older, have an impaired immune system, or are around people who do, wear a good, well-fitting mask, such as an N95, Frieden advises. In addition, communities should also monitor for coronavirus in wastewater, as they do for polio and other diseases, to detect outbreaks sooner and stop the spread.

“For now, most of us can enjoy the warm spring sun on our unmasked faces. But we can also do a lot more to control COVID,” Frieden writes. “How we play it will determine what happens next.”

Take care.

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Columbus Day a relic of our political past -- Oct. 7, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

If you have Monday off from work, thank 19^th century American politics.

The Columbus Day holiday has its roots in the presidential campaign of 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison was running for re-election.

 To win the votes of the many new Catholic and Italian immigrants who were being discriminated against, he proposed a holiday honoring Christopher Columbus, an Italian Catholic.

 Harrison then signed a proclamation, calling the 400^th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the New World on Oct. 12 a day to “let the people, so far as possible, cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the four completed centuries of American life.”

 Harrison also praised Columbus as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.”

 Unfortunately for Harrison, Grover Cleveland won the 1892 presidential contest.

 But the Columbus Day holiday caught on. The Knights of Columbus and other fraternal groups pushed states to recognize the holiday, and President Franklin Roosevelt made Oct. 12 a national holiday in 1934.

 It became a federal holiday in 1968, meaning all federal offices are closed, and moved to the second Monday in October in 1971.

 Columbus was looking for a trade route to Asia from Europe when his fleet of ships reached the Caribbean. Thinking he had reached the East Indies, he called the natives Indians, but he had landed in the Bahamas and never set foot on what would become the United States.

 He didn’t “discover” America because the land was already inhabited by native peoples with a vibrant culture and history. The Europeans brought disease, genocide, rape, slavery, forced conversion to Catholicism and exploitation to the New World.

 Since the 1970s, emotions have run strong on both sides of the Columbus controversy. Critics argue a holiday honoring Columbus is inappropriate at best, and many localities have abolished Columbus Day or renamed it.

 Supporters of Columbus and his holiday argue the changes denigrate the role of Italian Americans and all immigrants in creating American society.

 As Confederate monuments forced us to confront hard truths about historical figures, so too Columbus Day demands we reassess another flawed hero. Statues of Columbus were also toppled in several cities last year.

 The federal government still celebrates Columbus every October, but about half the states, the District of Columbia and scores of cities skip the holiday entirely or call it something else, such as Indigenous People’s Day. Where cities and states put the apostrophe in “Peoples” varies.

 Columbus, Ohio, the largest city named for Columbus, called off its Columbus Day holiday and festivities in 2018 and now closes on Veterans Day instead.

 Charlottesville, Falls Church, Richmond and Alexandria recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Virginia, with 11 Native American tribes, still officially calls the second Monday in October the Columbus and Victory in Yorktown Day, a state holiday.

 

Last year, Gov. Ralph Northam declared the first Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Virginia, “a day to honor the rich culture and recognize the contributions of Indigenous people and Native Americans across the Commonwealth.” He recognized Oct.11, 2021, the same way.

 Hawaii has Discoverers’ Day, honoring Polynesian explorers, and Colorado last year replaced Columbus Day with a new holiday on the first Monday in October, Cabrini Day.

 It honors Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian immigrant and naturalized citizen who founded more than 60 schools, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions first in Denver and then throughout the United States and South and Central America. She was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1946.

 Columbus was no saint, and he’s the only individual besides George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. we honor with a federal holiday. The third Monday in February is still officially Washington’s Birthday, not Presidents’ Day.

 Today we understand indigenous people suffered greatly at the hands of Columbus and throughout the forming of the United States. They were lied to, persecuted and removed from their lands.

 For years, some in Congress have sought to repeal Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Benjamin Harrison’s political ploy did not work for him, and it doesn’t reflect who we are today. It’s time to move on.  

 ©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

 

Yes, we do count in census, elections -- April 29, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Dozens of New Yorkers are probably kicking themselves for not filling out their census forms last year.

The Empire State is losing a congressional seat by 89 people. That’s not a typo.

If the census had counted just 89 more New Yorkers, the state would have retained its 27 seats in Congress, the Census Bureau reported this week.

The once-a-decade census may seem an administrative chore, but it’s in people’s self-interest to participate, even during a pandemic.

The census determines congressional seats for each state by population. It also allocates each state’s share of more than $800 billion in federal funds – your tax money – each year for food stamps, healthcare, housing assistance, job training and other services.

Census numbers are also used to create districts for the U.S. House and state legislatures, which often draw redistricting maps for future elections. The bureau will release detailed numbers this summer to guide redistricting efforts.

So, don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter if you fill out your census form – or if you vote. Elections also are often won – and lost -- on the margins.

A handful of states could have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden won the White House because he flipped several states Donald Trump won in 2016 – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In Arizona, Biden won by just under 10,500 votes out of nearly 3.4 million votes cast. Another audit, or recount of votes by hand, began April 23 in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and is expected to last until May 14.

No widespread election fraud has been found in Arizona or anywhere else, and the audit will not change the outcome of the election there, state officials say. Claims on the Internet that the audit has found 250,000 fraudulent votes are false, according to USA Today factcheckers.

In Georgia, Biden won with about 11,780 more votes than Trump out of 5 million votes cast. Several recounts there confirmed Biden’s win.

We’ll never know for sure how many New Yorkers, or Californians, for that matter, failed to fill out their census forms. California is losing a congressional seat for the first time. Also losing one seat each are Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The big census winner is Texas, which is gaining two House seats. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gain one seat.

Virginia, where growth slowed over the last decade, held onto its 11 congressional seats.

Since Republicans need a net gain of only five seats to take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats in 2022, the census is particularly significant this year.

New York gained population in the last decade, but other states grew at a faster rate, which means the New York delegation will shrink to 26 House seats.

“It’s obviously not desirable, and the last thing we want to do is to lose representation in Washington,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “So it’s not good news for the state.”

Cuomo is weighing a lawsuit to contest the count, although it’s an uphill fight. New York has sued unsuccessfully in the past over lost congressional seats.

Cuomo’s critics blame him for not doing more to gin up participation in the census during the pandemic. He blames the federal government for a chilling effect on participation.

Hispanic groups believe Hispanics were undercounted in key states like Arizona, Texas and Florida. They contend then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to put a question about respondents’ citizenship on the census discouraged immigrants from participating.

After two dozen states and many cities sued the Census Bureau and Commerce Department, the administration withdrew the question.

The Census Bureau indicated it was confident apportionment numbers were correct. Most states’ official population tallies were within 1 percentage point of independent projections.

It’s too late for the 2020 census, but voters in Virginia will pick a new governor, members of the House of Delegates, mayors and other local officials this November. An independent commission is redrawing state district maps for future elections.

Not only is it in our civic interest to participate in the census and to vote, it’s in our personal interest. Let your voice be heard.

©2021 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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August surprise: Congress does something -- Aug. 2, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Headline writers wait years to write one like this -- “Not the Onion: Congress set to pass bills.”

The headline was on a Politico news story Wednesday reporting a circumstance so rare it seemed like satire.

The Congress is doing its job. In August. Even though it’s an election year. Make that because it’s an election year.

Congress traditionally flees the capital for the month, a holdover from the sweltering days before air conditioning and later when it became marginally more comfortable to stay in town.

In 1963, for example, the Senate actually worked from January to December with no break longer than a three-day weekend, according to a Senate history. Congress in 1970 mandated an annual summer break for itself.

The House is taking its typical August break, having begun a five-week recess and returning after Labor Day. The Senate was scheduled to leave Aug. 3 for four weeks, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., canceled most of it. The Senate is off next week, then expected back the rest of the month.

McConnell said the Senate needed to pass fiscal 2019 appropriations bills now instead of waiting until the last minute and lumping them into an omnibus package. President Donald Trump signed the last omnibus reluctantly and vowed not to sign another.

So Congress is actually getting some things done in August. 

On Wednesday, Congress sent Trump a $717 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2019, which starts Oct. 1, and he is expected to sign it. It includes a 2.6 percent military pay raise, the largest in nine years, and authorizes Trump’s military parade in November.

The House passed the same measure last week. It usually takes months of negotiations between House and Senate to work out differences in defense policy bills, but this one sailed through with bipartisan support. 

Also on Wednesday, the Senate passed a $154.2 billion spending package that combined four spending bills. It provides funding for interior and the environment, agriculture, transportation, housing, treasury and the federal courts. The measure goes back to the House for reconciliation with a similar bill it passed last month.

The Senate has passed seven of the 12 spending bills so far, which McConnell said was the most by early August in nearly 20 years. 

If this sounds like good government is bustin’ out all over, don’t get all dewy-eyed about it. Remember we’re talking about Washington. This is also about hard-edged politics. 

Republicans want to prove they deserve to retain Senate control, especially as their majority in the House is in jeopardy. Their big job is confirming Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.

By keeping senators in Washington, the crafty McConnell is also keeping off the campaign trail 10 Democratic incumbents in tough re-election fights in states Trump won. In contrast, only one Republican senator is running for re-election in a state won by Hillary Clinton. That’s Dean Heller of Nevada.

Congress can’t ignore the hyperactive tweet machine in the White House, but the GOP leadership is keeping its powder dry as Trump repeatedly threatens to shut down the federal government if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall with Mexico.

Trump reportedly agreed in a meeting last week with McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to delay until after the midterm elections a fight on spending for the wall. 

“I’m optimistic we can avoid a government shutdown,” McConnell said diplomatically.

But Trump sees a shutdown as a dandy political tool that would help him with his base in November. 

“I happen to think it would be a good thing to do it before” the midterms,” Trump told conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Wednesday. “I happen to think it’s a great political thing because people want border security.”

Trump’s latest belligerence came as Republicans and Democrats are actually working together to pass the spending bills by the Sept. 30 deadline.

“The fly in the ointment here, of course, is the president, who keeps threatening,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Whenever he gets involved, he seems to mess it up.”

That was Not the Onion.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Ryan's choice good for him -- and Democrats -- April 12, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Normally, when a big-name public official announces he – it’s usually he -- is quitting his job to spend more time with his family, it’s a dodge.

Heads nod, knowing he’s in trouble and has no cushy job waiting on the outside. Few feel his pain.

For members of Congress, the family excuse often means the politician faces a tough re-election or must relinquish his committee chairman gavel because of House term limit rules. Or both.

Some go out complaining about the capital’s toxic atmosphere, the dysfunctional Congress and the never-ending quest for campaign cash.

A few members this year are also leaving Congress under the cloud of sexual harassment accusations.

In contrast, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s surprise announcement Wednesday he won’t seek another term in Congress was Dad of the Year material. He spoke about going home to Janesville, Wisconsin, to his wife Janna and children Liza, Sam and Charlie.

“This is my 20^th year in Congress. My kids weren’t even born when I was first elected. Our oldest was 13 when I became speaker. Now all three of our kids are teenagers. And one thing I’ve learned about teenagers is their idea of an ideal weekend is not necessarily to spend all of the time with their parents,” Ryan told reporters.

And here’s the kicker: “What I realize is, if I’m here for one more term, my kids will only have ever known me as a weekend dad. I just can’t let that happen.”

You don’t have to be in Congress to know what Ryan is talking about. Many moms and dads in demanding careers have similar nagging guilt.

Perhaps more than most 48-year-olds, Ryan feels his own mortality. Both his father and grandfather died of heart attacks before they were 60. At just 16 and a high school sophomore, Ryan found his father, an attorney, dead in his bed at 55.

Ryan has always seemed apart from most ambitious politicians. After being GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, he was widely expected to run for president in 2016, but didn’t. He was drafted as Speaker, an increasingly thankless job, in 2015, after John Boehner resigned from Congress.

As Speaker, Ryan travels the country extensively, fundraising and campaigning for GOP candidates. He often sees his kids only on Sunday, he told Fox News.

But if Ryan’s choice is good for him, it’s also good for Democrats.

By retiring, he signals the House may be lost and Democrat Nancy Pelosi will return as Speaker next year. Naturally, Ryan insists the GOP is in great shape and he’ll still campaign for Republicans. But a lame duck can’t talk convincingly about the future.

The customary route would have been to run and then retire after the election. The former altar boy considered doing that.

“But just as my conscience is what got me to take this job in the first place, my conscience could not handle going out that way,” he said.

As it is, Ryan is the most prominent in an army of incumbent Republicans beating a retreat from Washington. More than 40 House Republicans are either retiring or running for another office.

In Virginia, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte announced his retirement two days after a Democratic tide in last November’s state election swept many Republican incumbents from the legislature. Goodlatte is prohibited under House rules from staying on as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. 

Ryan wasn’t even the only Republican to announce his retirement Wednesday.

Rep. Dennis Ross, Republican of Florida, was announcing his when he looked at Fox News and saw Ryan was leaving, he told his local paper.

The filing deadline hasn’t passed in 19 states, so more retirements are possible.

As if the November election weren’t campaign enough, a battle now kicks off for Speaker, with Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana leading contenders.

Democrats, who need a net gain of two dozen seats for control of the House, were delighted by the unexpected turn of events.

“With his retirement announcement Speaker Paul Ryan becomes the first casualty of the 2018 midterm election,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, tweeted.

The Republicans’ nightmare in April seems like a dream come true for Democrats, but they shouldn’t celebrate just yet. 

It’s a long, long way to November – and victory has previously eluded their grasp.  

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Everything you need to know about vetoes -- Feb. 5, 2015 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The vetoes are coming. The House plans to vote next week on a Senate-passed bill approving construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and that likely will give President Barack Obama his first chance this year to use his veto pen.

After vetoing just two bills in six years, Obama already has threatened to reject at least 10 bills contemplated or under consideration by the Republican-controlled Congress.

That may sound impressive, but Obama is a veto piker compared with Grover Cleveland, the so-called king of vetoes. In his eight years as president, Cleveland wielded his veto authority 584 times.

But Cleveland takes second in total numbers to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his 12 years in the Oval Office, FDR had 635 vetoes – and he had Democratic congresses his entire tenure.

As we haven’t seen any vetoes since 2010, here’s a quick refresher on what Woodrow Wilson (44 vetoes) called a president’s “most formidable prerogative.”

The word veto comes from the Latin “I forbid” and refers to the president’s power to disapprove a bill and prevent its becoming law. The word veto doesn’t appear in the Constitution, but the framers put the power in Article 1, Section 7 as a check on the legislative process.

A president has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign a bill passed by Congress for it to become law. With a regular veto, the president returns the bill to the chamber where it originated, usually with an explanation of his objections. Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and the House.

If Congress adjourns during the 10 days, the president can’t return the bill. His decision to withhold his signature is a pocket veto, and Congress does not have the opportunity to override.

Since 1789, when the federal government was founded, 37 of the 44 presidents have used their veto power. In all there have been 2,564 vetoes -- 1,498 regular and 1,066 pocket.

The last president to serve two terms without a single veto? Thomas Jefferson.

Congress has overridden just 4 percent of vetoes, the Congressional Research Service reports, but the hurdle to overcoming a president’s objections has dropped in recent decades. Since John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, Congress has overridden 16 percent of vetoes.  

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress when Obama wielded his veto pen in 2009 and 2010, and neither veto was overridden.

You won’t be surprised that both veto threats and vetoes occur more often when the president and Congress are of different parties. Threats help the president shape legislation because the party in power knows it will need the support of two-thirds of the Congress to make law stick over a president’s disapproval.

“For highly consequential legislation drafted during divided party government, it is hardly an exaggeration to say the president keeps up a veritable drum-beat of veto threats,” Princeton University professor Charles M. Cameron wrote in an essay on “The Presidential Veto” published in 2009.

The vast majority of vetoes are inconsequential in that they have little public policy effect, he says. Congress has attempted to override about 80 percent of consequential vetoes during divided party government, with a success rate of 45 percent, adds Cameron, who is the author of the 2000 book “Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power.” 

Democrat Cleveland had a Democratic Congress for only two of his eight years as president. Of his 346 regular vetoes and 238 pocket vetoes, only seven were overridden. Most of the regular vetoes in his first term disallowed bills to grant veterans benefits to people who didn’t qualify. Even considering their symbolic value, though, “Cleveland’s vetoes…didn’t amount to much,” Cameron writes.

George W. Bush was the first president since John Quincy Adams to serve a full term without a veto, but that was in the post-9/11 era when Congress was more deferential. Bush issued 12 vetoes in his second term – 11 when Democrats controlled the Senate and House – and four were overridden.

Dwight Eisenhower used the veto to force compromise with Democratic activists, and Bill Clinton forced House Republicans led by Newt Gingrich to moderate, says Cameron.   

So as the vetoes come once again, we’ll see if Obama can use his leverage to force this Republican Congress to moderate its demands.  

©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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