Who Gets Blamed When Congress and the President Collide?

Abstract

Previous research suggests that vetoes can be politically costly for the president. To date, however, these inferences have been made based on either descriptive or aggregate-level data. While prior work demonstrates a correlation between vetoes and evaluations of the president, they have not explored how the public evaluates or responds to veto politics. We seek to address this gap through an original survey experiment that assesses how the public responds to the heightened interbranch conflict that surrounds a veto. Our results indicate that although a veto can cast the president in a negative light for some, there are conditions under which Congress’ decision to pass legislation it knows the president would veto can backfire. Citizens who are informed that Congress provoked a veto and those who are more politically knowledgeable are more likely to blame Congress for the legislation’s failure, even after controlling for partisanship and approval.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare there is no Conflict of Interest at this study.

Notes

1 “Obama Vetoes Bill Pushing Pipeline Approval” New York Times. 24 February 2015.

2 The Senate’s attempt to override the veto fell five votes short of the requisite two-thirds supermajority. The House did not take a vote to override.

3 These polls include a CBS News poll conducted on January 9-12 of 2015, a USA Today/Princeton Survey Research Associates International poll conducted on November 13-16 of 2014, a Pew Research Center poll conducted on November 6-9 of 2014, and another CBS News poll conducted on May 16-19 of 2014.

4 “With Keystone response, Obama enters new era: Likely veto could set trend for last half of his term” Boston Globe. 23 February 2015.

5 “Vetoes, 1789 to present.” https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/vetoCounts.htm.

6 “Statistics and Historic Comparison.” https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics

7 Despite disagreements over which factor serves as the primary cause of vetoes, some policy-centric accounts do acknowledge that an electoral explanation has utility in some cases (Cameron 2000, 159).

8 In doing so, we do not mean to imply that electoral explanations represent the consensus scholarly view or even the primary factor behind their issuance. Instead, we merely seek to test the empirical implications of one theoretical perspective for which prior studies find some empirical support.

9 The first survey was in the field February 21 to February 23, 2015, while the second survey was in the field February 25 to February 27, 2015. The bill was vetoed on February 24.

10 “Obama Vetoes Bill Pushing Pipeline Approval” New York Times. 24 February 2015.

11 In a bill-level analysis, Gilmour (2002) finds a negative relationship between midterm election years and the probability of a veto. He argues that although Congress passes more objectionable legislation closer to an election, the president’s veto pen is restrained by potential seat losses in the midterm election. Specifically, a midterm president “cannot expect to veto a marginally unsatisfactory bill and hope to do better with the new Congress” (212).

12 One notable distinction between the blame game model and Cameron’s (2000) sequential veto bargaining model is that Congress can have, but is not required to have, complete information about the president’s preferences.

13 “Reminder: The House Voted to Repeal Obamacare More Than 50 Times.” Time. 24 March 2017.

14 See McCarty (2009) for a discussion of how Congress-level data can be used to test the blame game model.

15 While we argue there is merit to testing the blame game model with individual level data, it is important to note that there is at least one advantage to using aggregate level approval data. Namely, the use of an aggregate presidential approval series makes it possible to cover a broader time span. Groseclose and McCarty examine all periods of divided government between 1952 to 1996.

16 “GOP-controlled House votes to approve Keystone pipeline despite veto threat.” Washington Post. 9 January 2015.

17 “House passes GOP-backed $14.3 billion Israel aid bill despite Biden veto threat.” CBS News. 2 November 2023.

18 “House Passes Stem Cell Bill Despite Veto Threat.” New York Times. 7 June 2007.

19 As an additional test, we estimated a model in which we interacted the treatment covariate with our measures of partisanship. None of the resulting interaction terms were significant, which indicates that partisanship did not condition the effect of the treatment.

20 It is important to note, however, that this work also demonstrates that “vocal and sustained pushback” from Congress can lead to decreased presidential support.

21 “Congress and the Public.” Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx.

22 It is important to note, however, that Reeves and Rogowski (2015) find little difference in public opinion toward constitutional and unilateral powers.