Washington

Dixon: Power to the president

AT A TIME when many U.S. senators, including Republican leaders, were taking great care to ensure the balanced budget constitutional amendment would not give new powers to the president, Democratic Sen. Alan Dixon of Illinois proposed to do just that — give new budgetary power to the chief executive.

What made his proposal surprising was the timing. It comes at a time when Congress is in a continual battle to protect social and health benefit programs from deep spending cuts sought by President Reagan.

The freshman Dixon offered an amendment to the constitutional amendment that would give the president "line-item veto" — the power to veto or reduce any particular item within spending bills passed by Congress. Currently, the president's only options are to sign the measure into law or veto the entire bill.

Rising in opposition to the Dixon amendment, Sen. Lawton Chiles (D., Fla.) wryly told the Senate: "I don't see the same kind of wisdom and light that I normally see from the senator [Dixon]. I wonder if he has thought this amendment through completely." And Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D., Ariz.) said to grant line-item veto power to the president would mean the Congress is asking for "a head-on collision."

But Dixon argued 43 states, including Illinois, have given their governors line-item veto power and it works. All too often, Dixon said, legislators attempt to put spending proposals opposed by the chief executive into "must" legislation that the executive cannot veto. "In Illinois, however, as in 42 other states, the governor can do something about it. He has an option that the president of the United States does not have."

Congress would be able to override line-item vetoes by a vote of a simple majority of members, Dixon said, allowing Congress to preserve its power of the purse. A two-thirds majority would still be needed to override vetoes of entire bills. Moreover, the junior senator said, the government would not be brought to a standstill every time the president is forced to veto a supplemental spending bill because of one item within the bill he doesn't like.

Dixon contended his proposal did "not conflict" with an earlier proposal by Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici (R., N.M.) to insert language in the constitutional amendment making it clear the amendment would not give the president power to impound, or withhold, funds appropriated by Congress.

Domenici, who virtually runs the Senate with Republican leader Howard Baker of Tennessee and Finance Committee chairman Bob Dole (R., Kan.), forced the Republican managers of the constitutional amendment to accept his change. Without it, he feared, the president would be able to impound funds any year on grounds he was merely acting to ensure the budget was in balance. The Domenici change was adopted unanimously by the Senate. Then came the Dixon proposal.

DeConcini conceded the line-item veto works well in state governments, "but I see a great deal of difference between the states and their budget problems and giving that much authority and power to the president in line-item vetoes." DeConcini cited the Carter administration and its "hit list" of 18 water projects, which he said would probably have been cut off from funding if President Carter had line-item veto power. As it turned out, Carter signed the bill with the 18 water projects in it rather than veto the entire measure.

Chiles argued that if the president had line-item veto power, some bureaucrats in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would pick and choose which items they do not like, items that might be important to senators from a particular state or a particular region of the country.

"The senator from Illinois might have a project in his state he thinks is important, his people think is important," Chiles told the Senate. "He holds hearings on it. He gets the committees and the whole Congress to agree to that project, but that mole in OMB looking out from under his eyes shade can decide, 'Nope, I don't think we ought to do that.' Boom! The line goes through that item.

"Then the senator from Illinois is going to have a tough time being able to convince the whole Congress that we ought to stop the process, that we ought to override . . . that little line that is drawn through his project. I want to protect the senator from Illinois from having that happen to him, and I hope the rest of the body will protect him in that regard, too."

Dole spoke in favor of Dixon's idea saying he believed it would "improve and streamline our procedures," but that it did not belong within the balanced budget constitutional amendment. And Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Strom Thurmond (R., S.C.) offered to hold hearings on Dixon's plan if Dixon would agree to withdraw it and offer it later as a separate constitutional amendment.

Citing the assurance of hearings from Thurmond and conceding he did not have the votes, Dixon withdrew his proposal from the Senate floor and said he would "at an early date" offer a proposed constitutional amendment directed at the line-item veto question. With the 97th Congress coming to a close, Dixon is not likely to offer such a proposal until next year, if at all.

38 | October 1982 | Illinois Issues