Bush To Try For Line Item Veto

(CBS/AP)  President Bush has formally announced he's sending legislation to Congress calling for reinstatement of the line item veto, reports CBS News correspondent Peter Maer.

The White House says the proposal would overcome constitutional questions by allowing an up or down Congressional votes on spending items singled out for the line veto.

The president, who has not vetoed any legislation during five years in office, asked Congress in his State of the Union address to give him line-item veto power.

Mr. Bush made the announcement during his remarks at the swearing-in ceremony for the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., said that although he and the president "don't agree on much," he "fully" supports giving Bush the line item veto.

Both Republican and Democratic presidents have sought the power to eliminate a single item in a spending or tax bill without killing the entire measure.

President Clinton got that wish in 1996, when the new reform-minded Republican majority in the House helped pass a line-item veto law.

Two years later, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional because it violated the principle that Congress, and not the executive branch, holds the power of the purse.

The law let the president sign a bill and within five days go back to reject specific spending items or tax breaks in it. Congress then could reinstate the item by passing a separate bill.

Opponents of the line-item veto argued that once a law is signed by the president, it can be changed only in the way prescribed by the Constitution for enacting a law — a congressional vote followed by the president's signature. Once the president has exercised a line-item veto, they contended, the final law would not be the same as the measure approved by Congress.

Writing for the Supreme Court, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens cited the "profound importance" of the issue and almost reluctantly concluded that "the procedures authorized by the line-item veto act are not authorized by the Constitution."

"If there is to be a new procedure in which the president will play a different role in determining the text of what may become a law, such change must come not by legislation but through the amendment procedures set forth in Article V of the Constitution," Stevens said.