Speech #1010117924

The District of Columbia Circuit sustained the congressional position. holding that the principle which Senator KENNEDY had established 10 years earlier in Kennedy versus Sampson applied equally to intersession vetoes. The Supreme Court left the constitutional issue unresolved. however. because the case became moot when the fiscal year to which the El Salvador bill applied ended. President Bushs memorandum on vetoing the Emergency Chinese Immigration Act of 1989 last November suggests that the act had been subject to a pocket veto because the intersession adjournment of the Congress had prevented. in the Presidents view. the return of the bill. However. taking note of the opinions of the District of Columbia Circuit. the President wrote that he was "sending" the bill to the House Clerk "with my objections." But the President complies with the Constitutions veto clause. which establishes that the procedure for vetoing a bill is to "return" it "with his Objections." when he sends the bill back to the originating House with a statement of objections. as was done with the Emergency Chinese Immigration Act. Although the Presidents memorandum may have preserved a legal position for a future day. in the case of the Emergency Chinese Immigration Act both Congress and the President acted on the wellfounded constitutional understanding that whether the bill became a law would be determined by whether there were sufficient votes in each House to override the veto. The President and administration officials lobbied hard and successfully for votes. They would not have had to do so if the act was already a nullity because it had been pocket vetoed last November. and if the Presidents decision to send It back to the Congress was only a gesture.