Over the last couple of months as state legislatures have adopted budgets for fiscal year 2017, governors have exercised their responsibility to act on appropriation bills. Like other bills, governors can choose to sign them, veto them in full, or let them become law without their signature. State constitutions give governors another option designed just for appropriation bills, the line-item veto. A governor may veto individual items contained in an appropriation bill while leaving the rest of the bill to become law. Line-item vetoes are often accompanied by a message providing an explanation of the veto.
Forty-four governors have some form of the line-item veto, or partial veto power, over appropriation bills. The six states that don’t have it are: Indiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont. Thirty-eight of the 44 states require a super-majority of votes from the legislature to override the governor’s line-item veto. See NASBO’s Budget Process in the States, Spring 2015 publication for the detailed listing on Table 8.
The specific constitutional language for line-item veto power varies across the states. Court decisions on interpreting the use of this power vary even more. Even more different is the style and structure of state appropriation bills, a subject that has received very little attention in comparative studies. Scholarly research into governors’ uses of the line-item veto suggest that it has been used as a mechanism for fiscal control, to limit spending, to influence the legislative budget process, and as a check against excessive legislative actions on the operation of the executive branch.
As of early June, below is a quick breakdown of 2016 legislative sessions’ actions:
- Of the 34 states acting initially on their fiscal year 2017 budgets 22 have been passed by the legislature with 21 governors already acting on those budget bills.
- Of those 21 governors at least 11 chose to issue line-item vetoes.
- Sixteen states already passed a budget for fiscal year 2017 during their 2015 legislative sessions; several of those enacted budgets are slated for modifications in the 2016 sessions, including two with line-item vetoes.
The nature of the line-item vetoes provides some interesting views of executive/legislative relations relating to state budgets. More observations on the 2016 chapter of governors’ line-item vetoes will be provided in an upcoming blog.