The Line-Item Veto in Practice in Ten Southern States

Abstract

Forty-three governors currently possess some form of item veto power, which is generally the power to delete an item in an appropriations bill without rejecting the entire bill (Council of State Governments, 1991). While the line-item veto has been consistently regarded as a significant indicator of the strength of formal gubernatorial powers, its value as a tool of fiscal restraint has been primarily debated only in the past few decades, in part because fiscal control was not an original purpose of the power. To inform contemporary debate over the efficacy of the line-item veto, both as a potential federal tool and as a current state tool, it is important to study it both as. an instrument of political power accruing to governors in general and as a tool of fiscal restraint in particular. The purpose of this research, which is largely exploratory, is to examine the use of the line-item veto in practice In 10 southern states. Its significance is that no prior study has examined the actual--as opposed to the reported--use of the line-item veto in a multistate setting. Two approaches to studying the line-item veto can be identified from prior research, the survey approach and the case study approach. The survey method, as utilized by Abney and Lauth (1985), involved the use of a mail survey of state budget officers. This study measured the impact of item veto power by a reported measure of the frequency of its use. However, an analysis confined to the frequency of item veto use does not address the reasons for vetoes and the relationship between the line-item veto power and individual state political environments. The case study approach, used by Gosling (1986) in Wisconsin, Thompson and Boyd (1994) in Texas, and Lauth and Reese (1993) in Georgia, yielded richer data and analyses than the survey method. However, single-state studies do not allow one to generalize from the results. The case of Wisconsin, for example, may be anomalous due to the extensive inclusion in its appropriations bills of legislation not directly related to the budget and the consequent tendency of the governor to use the item veto primarily to affect matters of law rather than finance. This study, aligned methodologically with the case study approach, analyzes item vetoes in 10 southern states through a description of their use and the characteristics of political processes affecting their use. Data collected for each of the states for the 20-year study period 1973-1992 include the texts of vetoed items, veto messages, and override decisions. Dollar amounts associated with item vetoes are contained within the texts of vetoed items, and reasons for item vetoes are contained within veto messages. Interviews were held with selected state officials, and articles from local newspapers were collected to assist with the interpretation of line-item veto data. The limitations of the survey approach on the line-item veto are transcended because actual longitudinal data are used instead of reported recollections, while the external validity problems of the case study are avoided by the use of a 10-state study group. Prior research suggests three groups of hypotheses: (1) those related to the description of the line-item veto in practice, (2) those related to the interaction of the use of the line-item veto with state appropriations processes, and (3) those related to the interaction of the use of the line-item veto with state political environments. Each of the groups of hypotheses is introduced and analyzed in turn. Description of the Line-Item Veto in Practice Several hypotheses and ideas are suggested by the literature regarding the actual use of the line-item veto. First, the research of Gosling (1986) in Wisconsin and Thompson and Boyd (1994) in Texas suggest that governors use the line-item veto frequently, whereas the research of Lauth and Reese (1993) in Georgia suggests the contrary. As Table 1 indicates, the total number of line-item vetoes for the 1973-92 period varies a great deal by state, ranging from zero in Alabama to 1,350 in Louisiana. …