Institutional and Individual Influences on the President's Veto

Abstract

This article evaluates and compares "president" and "presidency" centered explanations of presidential activity with respect to one important presidential power, the veto. Using individual bill data for nine congresses characterized by divided party government, I estimate a logistic regression model of presidential vetoes. This contrasts with previous research, which has used annual aggregate data. Using individual bill data allows controls for objectionable legislation passed by Congress and enables me to measure and compare the "propensity to veto" of different presidents. I conclude that presidential vetoes are in substantial measure caused by Congress passing objectionable bills, but that even controlling for congressional behavior, presidents exhibit strikingly different veto behavior. Ford was most prone to using the veto, and Reagan, the least. Although external factors exert great influence on the president's veto decision, the individual choices and strategies of presidents also have an important influence.A paradox of the American presidency is that this office, routinely called the most powerful on Earth, is also said by many observers to allow its incumbent relatively little autonomy. Neustadt (1960) asked whether the president was a "leader or clerk." Similarly, recent work has focused on "president" versus "presidency" centered explanations of presidential activity (Hager and Sullivan 1994;Shields and Huang 1997). Presidency-centered explanations suppose that the president is a clerk and that presidential behavior is a function of the institutional setting of the president. From this perspective, the individual attributes and idiosyncratic strategic choices of presidents have little influence, and presidents make the choices they do because of externally imposed constraints over which they have little control. The essence of the presidency-centered approach is the view "that most presidents would behave similarly in similar contexts" (Hager and Sullivan 1994, 1081). President-centered explanations suppose that the president makes choices that are not determined by outside factors and that individual attributes of the president will make a difference. According to the president-centered view, the president will have the freedom of action to im-

Going it Alone: The Politics of Signing Statements from Reagan to Bush II

“…But as important as an individual focus can be, there is another critical element of executive power that flows more from the institution than from the individual elected to the White House. This presidency-centered approach toward presidential power places greater emphasis on the institutional context of the executive branch (Gilmour, 2002;Mayer, 2001). From this perspective, power is not derived from presidential bargaining or persuasion; rather, presidents can utilize inherent advantages of the executive branch as well as an array of executive tools to achieve their political and policy ends.…”

“…By minimizing conflict and passing a policy agenda, the party can demonstrate competence for governing and build a valuable reputation, facilitating reelection of party members. For example, there exists considerable evidence that policy conflict erupting from presidential vetoes can be quite costly and that Congress and the president try to avoid such conflict, especially under unified government (Ingberman and Yao, 1991;Groseclose and McCarty, 2001;Rohde and Simon, 1985;Gilmour, 2002).…”

Why Do Governors Issue Vetoes? The Impact of Individual and Institutional Influences

“…This approach emphasizes factors such as minority party opposition and the electoral cycle. Recent studies of presidential vetoes (Gilmour 2002) and of presidential behavior more generally (Hager and Sullivan 1994) provide empirical support for both the president-and presidency-centered perspectives.…”

Eisenhower's Veto Threats: Full of Nothing, Signifying Sound and Fury

“…The Matthews (1989) model is closer to the model of veto bargaining of Cameron (2000) and they find that the data support that model more than the commitment model. While neither model is perfect, they find that many of the faulty predictions of the coordination model seem related to the "blame-game" vetoes of Groseclose and McCarty (2001), where vetoes can result because at least one of the actors prefers an issue to a law, to use Gilmour's (1995) phrasing. While the commitment model is appealing for its apparent descriptive accuracy of some notable veto threats, some predictions that come out of the model are not borne out by their data.…”

“…Groseclose and McCarty (2001) show that vetoes can be painful for the president, at least in terms of public opinion. Opposition Congresses have been shown (Cameron, Lapinski, and Riemann 2000;Gilmour 2002) to engage in attempts to force vetoes from a president for political-rather than legislative-gain.…”