Reply #46: Then the words have lost their meaning

[kenny blankenship]

(but that's hardly surprising anymore)
See, veto USED to mean the people's representatives wanted something, and voted for something, and then that thing was forbidden by ANOTHER institution of power, which has a perogative over the first body, and which being higher in rank, said "tough shit, voting for it isn't good enough. It displeases us, and it will not pass." Kings used to be able to do that. In the fine print of the Constitution, Article 1 Section 7, there is provision for overriding the Presidential veto --however you'll notice if you go looking for it, that there's no such provision for the House to override the Senate's veto. If a bill fails to pass in the Senate, no size of majority even total unanimity in the House can override and continue its forward motion.

What you are doing is confusing "parliamentary procedure", old as the hills of Rome, with veto perogative, which in our system resides in the Presidency but ALSO (and more quietly and interestingly) in the Senate.

See, the danger of the Presidency is that the office was always subject to the voice of the people. The President might not veto things the leading citizens of our great land would want vetoed. He might fail to do so, because as a popularly elected official representing the entire country, he might succumb to popular pressures instead of localized influences. Even though the President would probably always be drawn from the ranks of the elite, there was always the chance that he might go native on them, or that the hoi polloi would manage someday to elect one of their own. (Shivers!) Therefore the Senate would see to it that all measures passed out of the House would have to clear the hurdle of elite approval before even reaching the President's desk. In its original composition, the Senate was practically a self-selected body of elite family sons. (It hasn't changed all that much in this respect, except the pretense to aristocracy has degenerated into rank oligarchy) By the original rules, specifically Senate Rule 22, one such pedigreed individual could stand in the path of anything, by keeping debate open on a bill indefinitely. (Very useful if you've inherited a bunch of slaves and several sections of river bottom land. Busybodies will want to take your slaves from you, but with a reasonably priced Senate seat, you can destroy their plans, just by a refusal to stop talking!) Senate Rule 22 has been amended several times begining in the 20th century, the last occasion in 1975 iirc., when ahem -DEMOCRATS- loosened the requirements needed for cloture from 67 votes down to 60 so that the Republican side of the Senate could not filibuster them anymore. Well well, what's sauce for the goose as they say...

I hope this nasty and highly disingenuous progression ends eventually with the elimination of the U.S. Senate entirely, may it rot in pieces, together with its pernicious influence over the Electoral College. It's too much to hope that I'll live to see it though.