Wisconsin Item-Veto Lessons

President Ronald Reagan, in his 1986 State of the Union Message, called upon Congress to give the President authority to item-veto appropriations legislation, imploring: Give me the authority to veto waste, and I'll take the responsibility, I'll make the cuts, I'll take the heat.' He also made a similar request in his FY 1987 Budget Message. But 1986 was not the first year in which the item veto was high on the President's agenda. Both the 1984 and 1985 State of the Union Messages also contained calls for a presidential item veto. The President's initiative set off a wave of controversy and reaction inside and outside of Congress. Fourteen bills and resolutions conferring item-veto authority on the President were introduced during the Ninetyeighth Congress. In 1985, contentious debate in the Senate over Senator Mark Mattingly's bill to provide the President item-veto authority on a trial-run, twoyear basis evolved into a week-long filibuster led by Senate Appropriations Chair Mark Hatfield. Even with President Reagan's personal contacts with recalcitrant senators, the vote to end debate fell two shy of the required 60. Both President Reagan and Senator Mattingly have vowed to continue their efforts in the Senate.2 Yet, even if the proposal were to make it through the Senate intact, the prospects for passage in the House appear dim, given the Democrats' significant margin of seats. While congressional enactment of a presidential item veto appears unlikely in 1986, that is not to say that the issue is lacking attention. Reviews and commentary have appeared in such nationally distributed periodicals as Fortune, 3 the National Journal, 4 The New Republic,5 Newsweek,6 MacLeans',7 the Wall Street Journal,8 Business Week, 9 and the Reader's Digest. 10 The American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation' 2 have both prepared issue discussion papers generally supportive of the presidential item veto, while the House Committee on the Budget has produced an appraisal that is, in balance, critical of the presidential item veto. 'I Moreover, a few articles have begun to appear in scholarly journals analyzing the issues raised,'4 the history of presidential reliance on the general veto, '5 and the constitutional foundation and implications of the debate. 16 The key issues most prominently addressed include: 1. Whether or not a presidential item veto would provide an effective tool to control federal spending and reduce the national deficit, given the high percentage of entitlement and multiyear spending authority comprising the federal budget; 2. Whether or not presidential item-veto authority would restore or undermine the presidential/congres* An item veto for the President has been hailed by supporters as a potentially significant tool of fiscal restraint. Supporters point to its successful use by state governors, yet little is really known about how the item veto is employed at the state level. This study of gubernatorial item-veto use in Wisconsin over a 12-year period suggests that it has been used primarily as a tool of policy choice and partisan advantage rather than of fiscal restraint. Based on the Wisconsin experience, the author suggests that a presidential item veto could well be used largely as a resource to gain partisan leverage in pursuit of the President's policy agenda.