The Pocket Veto and the Orange Santa Claus

[David Lockmiller]

President Lincoln “struck out” with congressional radicals.

Team of Rivals at pages 639-640 reads:

The goodwill engendered among congressional radicals by Lincoln’s appointment of Fessenden was swiftly eroded by his refusal to sign the punitive Reconstruction bill that passed the Congress in the final hours of July 2, 1864, before it adjourned for the summer. [T]he bill laid down a rigid formula for bringing the seceded states back into the Union. The process differed in significant ways from the more lenient plan Lincoln had announced the previous December. Lincoln had proposed to rehabilitate individual states as quickly as possible, hoping their return would deflate Southern morale and thereby shorten the war. . . . Finally, the bill imposed emancipation by congressional fiat where Lincoln believed that such a step overstepped constitutional authority and instead proposed a constitutional amendment to ensure that slavery could never return.

Rather than veto the bill outright, Lincoln exercised a little-known provision called the pocket veto, according to which unsigned bills still on the president’s desk when Congress adjourns do not become law. In a written proclamation, he explained that while he would not protest if any individual state adopted the plan outlined in the bill, he did not think it wise to require every state to adhere to a single inflexible system.

Lincoln understood that he would be politically damaged if the radicals “chose to make a point upon this.” Nevertheless, he told John Hay, “I must keep some consciousness of being somewhere near right: I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself.” He would rely upon this conviction in the days ahead when Wade and Davis published a bitter manifesto against him. He was not surprised by their anger at the suppression of their bill, but he was stung by their vitriolic tone and their suggestion that his veto had been prompted by crass electoral concerns. “To be wounded in the house of one’s friends,” he told Noah Brooks, “is perhaps the most grievous affliction that can befall a man,” the same sentiment he had expressed when he lost his first Senate race in 1855. Now personal sorrow was compounded by the realization that radical opposition might divide the Republican Party, undoing the unity he had struggled to maintain through the turbulent years of his presidency.

[Gene C]

I don't understand the reference to Orange Santa Claus
Team of Rivals is a great book.
Listened to an audio version on a car trip. Even my wife liked it.

Other than that....

Merry CHRISTmas everyone

[David Lockmiller]

I don't understand the reference to Orange Santa Claus
Team of Rivals is a great book.
Listened to an audio version on a car trip. Even my wife liked it.

Other than that....

Merry CHRISTmas everyone

President Trump is the Orange Santa "Clause." He has the choice of either signing the Pandemic relief legislation or exercising his right under a provision (clause) of the Constitution, "according to which unsigned bills still on the president’s desk when Congress adjourns do not become law." The Congress plans to adjourn next week.

[David Lockmiller]

President Trump is the Orange Santa "Clause." He has the choice of either signing the Pandemic relief legislation or exercising his right under a provision (clause) of the Constitution, "according to which unsigned bills still on the president’s desk when Congress adjourns do not become law." The Congress plans to adjourn next week.

Headline: "Unemployment Aid Set to Lapse Saturday as Trump’s Plans for Relief Bill Remain Unclear"
New York Times – December 25, 2020

About 24 hours after Congress approved the measure, Mr. Trump emerged in a video from the White House to declare that it was a “disgrace.” He called for direct payments to be more than tripled to $2,000 per adult and assailed as wasteful provisions in the funding bill — such as foreign aid and money for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — though most of those provisions came almost dollar for dollar from his own budget request.

The aid bill also includes billions of dollars to help states with coronavirus vaccine distribution, a replenished small-business loan program and relief money for airlines. It was passed along with a spending measure to keep the government funded for the remainder of the fiscal year; the cost of the combined package is $2.3 trillion.

Lawmakers in Congress and White House officials have indicated that they remain uncertain if Mr. Trump will relent and sign the legislation, issue a formal veto or just leave it unsigned. While Congress could potentially override Mr. Trump’s veto, sitting on the bill — a so-called pocket veto — would require the next Congress to reintroduce and vote on the legislation early next year.


Additional information according to the United States Senate:

United State Senate -- Glossary Term | Pocket Veto

Pocket Veto - The Constitution grants the president 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the president has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature. However, if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, the bill does not become law.