End of a Presidential Streak
After five and a half years in office, President George W. Bush looked prepared to follow John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, and James Garfield as the only U.S. Presidents to serve without issuing a single veto. Although Harrison died after a month in office and Garfield’s tenure was significantly cut short by an assassin, leaving them without adequate time to prove their veto capabilities. That mark of history came to an end yesterday as the President vetoed the controversial bill to fund embryonic stem cell research. It took President Bush 2005 days to issue the first veto of his two terms. The House of Representatives also failed to override the Commander-in-Chief’s veto, falling 51 votes short of a two-thirds majority.
This course of events does not mean that the debate or the process to fund such research is dead. There was much dissention from powerful politicians within the President’s own party. There are other bills for stem cell research without embryos pending in the House and Senate. Those bills are considered more likely to pass muster with the Bush administration.
Looking back on presidential vetoes, Bush is still an anomaly of the past 100 years. Garfield was the last President to not issue a veto, and that was in 1881. No President of the 20th century avoided wielding the power for long. Bill Clinton managed to survive his first two years in office without issuing a veto, but came to issue 37 in the subsequent six years.
Only two Presidents in history even had the majority of their vetoes overridden by Congress (Andrew Johnson and Franklin Pierce), and neither of them served in past 100 years. Even Gerald Ford, the only President to never be elected, used his veto power 66 times in his short tenure of office.
Of course, some Presidents have used the power of veto more than others. Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed its power a total of 635 times and was only denied nine times. In nonconsecutive years, Grover Cleveland said no 584 times with only seven Congressional denials. Even Ulysses Grant, who never wanted to be President, vetoed 93 bills. And the President’s own father wielded his power 44 times in four years.
With mid-term elections looming, President Bush’s tendency of vetolessness may come to an end soon. There is no telling which party will hold the majority in the House or Senate, and what reaction those representatives will have toward the administrations policies. The public must wait and see if this first veto is a glimpse of what’s to come or just a passing fancy.
