Tag: line item veto

Trump administration botches basic civics while calling for line-item veto

The following article by Salvador Rizzo was posted on the Washington Post website March 27, 2018:

The president spaced out while describing Clinton’s position on Mars exploration. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: “I think they should give the president a line-item veto.”

Chris Wallace: “But that’s been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, sir.”

Mnuchin: “Well, again, Congress could pass a rule, okay, that allows them to do it.”

Wallace: “No, no, sir, it would be a constitutional amendment.”

Mnuchin: “Chris, we don’t — we don’t need to get into a debate in terms of — there’s different ways of doing this.”

— Exchange on “Fox News Sunday,” March 25

President Trump wants Congress to give him a powerful tool to trim spending: the line-item veto. Continue reading “Trump administration botches basic civics while calling for line-item veto”

Dayton: Republican claims about my vetoes simply aren’t true

The following commentary by Gov. Mark Dayton was posted on the StarTribune website September 26, 2017:

I didn’t leave legislators cash-starved or try to destroy a coequal branch. I just want to revise a tax bill to keep the state on firm fiscal footing.

Ever since I vetoed some of the Minnesota Legislature’s funding for the next two years, Republican legislative leaders have been screaming that I am trying to abolish their branch of government. They sued me, claiming that I had acted unconstitutionally by denying them enough money to “survive” until next February’s legislative session, when they will be able to restore their full funding.

In the Legislature’s brief filed with the Minnesota Supreme Court just last week, they again swore that my vetoes had denied them enough money to operate until next February. In addition, a group of Republican legislators wrote in these pages last Friday that “ … the governor used his line-item veto power to eliminate funding for the Legislature, effectively abolishing the legislative branch.” Continue reading “Dayton: Republican claims about my vetoes simply aren’t true”

MN Supreme Court says Mark Dayton’s veto of legislative budget was constitutional

The following article by Rachel E. Stassen-Berger was posted on the Pioneer Press website September 8, 2017:

Credit: Steve Mullis, MPR

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday decided that Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto of the House and Senate budgets earlier this year was constitutional.

“We hold that the governor’s exercise of his line item veto authority … was constitutional,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea wrote. “This conclusion, however, does not end the matter.”

The justice wrote that the court does not believe it has the authority to order the Legislature funded, as did a previous district court, while the dispute goes on. Therefore it ordered Dayton, a Democrat, and the Republican Legislature back into talks with a mediator. Continue reading “MN Supreme Court says Mark Dayton’s veto of legislative budget was constitutional”