Veto Rhetoric and Legislative Riders

Abstract

Riders to appropriations bills have long been a favorite congressional instrument for forcing presidents to accept unwanted policies. To resist unwanted riders, presidents have increasingly resorted to veto threats. Are such threats credible, and do they influence legislation? To answer these questions, we analyze the legislative histories of hundreds of threatened and unthreatened riders from 1985 through 2008. We find that threats are effective in bringing the final legislation closer to the president's preferences. Threats achieve their success, in large part, by interrupting the textbook legislative process in the Senate-spawning filibusters, prompting leaders to punt bills to conference, and encouraging the use of other "unorthodox" procedures. Unlike conventional models that regard veto threats as minimally effective, the findings presented here depict veto rhetoric as integral to identifying critical riders separating the legislative parties that must be resolved in order to avoid gridlock and pass annual appropriations legislation.

Presidential Communication During the Legislative Process

“…More directly, presidents can offer legislative proposals (Bond and Fleisher, 1990; Eshbaugh‐Soha, 2005; Gelman, Wilkenfeld, and Scott Adler, 2015; Rudalevige, 2002) or advocate for their preferred legislative outcomes within Congress during deliberation (Beckmann, 2010). Presidents may also utilize veto threats in an effort to extract concessions from Congress (Cameron, 2000; Hassell and Kernell, 2016).…”

“…There are good reasons, though, to suspect a president will, under certain conditions, make multiple public statements on a single piece of legislation. If, for example, presidents use veto threats to engage in sequential communication or bargaining with Congress (Hassell and Kernell, 2016; Cameron, 2000), it follows that presidents will make more than one public statement on a bill.…”

“…Although Congress has the sole constitutional authority to introduce and create laws, presidents are now routinely involved throughout the process (Burke, 2000; Collier, 1997). One of the many tools a president may use while negotiating with Congress over the content of laws is to publicly take positions on legislative proposals (Barrett, 2005; Canes‐Wrone, 2001; Eshbaugh‐Soha and Miles, 2011; Hassell and Kernell, 2016; Kernell, 1997). While a sizable body of scholarship notes the importance of presidential position‐taking during the lawmaking process (Beckmann, 2010; Cameron, 2000; Kingdon, 1989; Krehbiel, 1998), presidential scholars have given less attention to the question of how often and when presidents will engage with Congress.…”

New Data for Investigating the President’s Legislative Program: OMB Logs and SAPs*

“…She found that “presidents sometimes provide Congress advance notice of their constitutional concerns [in SAPs], while at other times, they blindside Congress with concerns raised for the first time” in signing statements (Rice , 704). Hassell and Kernell () examined whether the president can use veto‐threat SAPs to limit riders to appropriations bills and found that such threats do help bring appropriations closer to the president’s preferences. Bonett and Kernell () use SAPs to estimate presidents’ ideologies and find that presidents are less extreme ideologues during unified government than CQ support scores suggest.…”

Presidents’ Vetoes and Audience Costs

“…Early evidence suggests that presidents’ growing reliance on veto threats is well justified. Presidents have succeeded in knocking about half of the objectionable provisions out of both appropriations (Hassell and Kernell ) and authorization bills (Gunther and Kernell forthcoming).…”