Trump asks Congress to reinstate presidential power Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in the 1990s
President Donald Trump has asked Congress to reinstate the line-item veto, which was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1990s.
Mr Trump made the call for that governing power — which allows a president to veto specific portions of a bill or budget, while leaving the rest in-tact — as he complained that he was not completely satisfied with a budget bill that he signed.
The president chided Congress for not including as much military funding as he would like, saying that he was upset that there was not a dramatic increase to that sector even though Congress included funding for “things that are really a wasted sum of money”.
“To prevent the omnibus situation from ever happening again, I’m calling on Congress to give me a line-item veto for all government spending bills, and the Senate must end — they must end the filibuster rule and get down to work,” Mr Trump said, speaking in the White House. “We have to get a lot of great legislation approved, and without the filibuster rule, it’ll happen just like magic.”
Mr Trump is not the first president to request the power of the line-item veto, which 40 governors across the United States enjoy. Congress voted in 1996 to give former President Bill Clinton the powers, but the Supreme Court found that congressional gift to be unconstitutional in 1998 in a 6-3 vote.
The president’s call for the Senate to do away with the filibuster is nothing new for him, though.
He has frequently called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bin the rule, which requires a 60 vote margin of approval on many bills before the Senate can even vote on the issue.
Republicans control the Senate with 51 senators to Democrats’ 49 senators. That 60-vote margin has been a steep obstacle for Mr Trump and his agenda, and has meant that some measures favoured by Mr Trump won’t see a vote in this Congress at all.
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