Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the President the power to return legislation passed by Congress with written objections — a veto. Congress can override a veto, but only by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, and it rarely does. The Congressional Research Service describes the threat of a veto as itself "an effective tool for the President, sometimes forcing Congress to modify legislation before presenting the bill to the President."
The Constitutional Mechanics
The Constitution, in the Congressional Research Service's summary of Article I, Section 7, provides that for a bill to become law "it must be approved by both houses of Congress and presented to the President for approval and signature." The President then has 10 days, Sundays excepted, to act. Four paths exist:
Sign the bill. The President "may sign a bill into law within the 10-day period (excluding Sundays)". What a President may say in the act of signing is a separate question.
Veto the bill. The Constitution directs that the President "shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated". The bill goes back to the chamber it started in, whichever that is: CRS gives the example that "if the President vetoes a bill that was introduced in the Senate, the bill will be returned first to the Senate where the possible override process would begin." CRS calls this a "regular" or "return" veto.
Take no action while Congress is in session. Article I, Section 7 provides that if a bill "shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it". No signature is needed.
Pocket veto. The same sentence carries an exception: a bill becomes law that way "unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law." Where Congress has adjourned within the 10-day window and the President does not sign, the bill does not become law, and CRS records that pocket vetoes are "not subject to the congressional veto override process." When a pocket veto is actually available is a contested question of its own.
The Override Process
Article I, Section 7 sets the sequence: "If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law." The originating chamber votes first. If it falls short, the veto stands and the second chamber never votes.
Two-thirds of what, exactly, is worth stating precisely. CRS records that although the Constitution says "two thirds of that House," "congressional procedure, tradition, and judicial rulings have interpreted this requirement to mean two thirds of those Members present and voting, provided there is a quorum present." The number of votes an override needs therefore moves with attendance on the day of the vote; it is not a fixed count derived from the full size of either chamber.
Nothing compels a vote at all. In CRS's words, "Neither chamber is under any constitutional, legal, or procedural obligation to schedule an override vote. It is not unusual for Congress to make no effort to override the veto if congressional leaders do not believe they have sufficient votes." When Congress does act, it must finish "before the end of the Congress in which the veto is received."
Overrides are rare. The Senate's own summary table of vetoes since 1789 records 1,533 regular vetoes, 1,066 pocket vetoes, 2,599 in total, and 112 overridden — about 7% of the regular vetoes. The American Presidency Project keeps a separate table, compiled from different underlying sources and current through January 8, 2026; added up president by president, it gives the same four numbers. Only regular vetoes can be overridden at all, because a pocket veto, in the American Presidency Project's words, "can only occur after a session of Congress has adjourned and cannot be overridden by Congress".
That 7% understates the modern rate. CRS points out that the figure "is skewed downward by the large number of vetoes prior to" the 87th Congress, which began in 1961 — most of those earlier vetoes being vetoes of private bills, a category CRS says dropped from hundreds a year to a few dozen after a 1971 change in how small claims are handled. Counting regular vetoes from 1961 forward, the July 2019 edition of the CRS overview found "245 vetoes and 38 overridden (15.5%)."
The Veto as a Negotiating Tool
A veto is not the administration's only move while a bill is still in front of Congress; it can say in advance what it intends to do. CRS describes Statements of Administration Policy (SAPs) as "a written form of communication between the Administration and Congress" that are "typically issued shortly before floor action on the bill", and records that the "Office of Management and Budget coordinates the creation of SAPs on behalf of the Executive Office of the President."
SAPs "communicate varying levels of Administration support or opposition to a bill", and CRS writes that they "are generally the first formal indicator of the Administration's intent to veto a bill." A SAP carrying a veto threat uses "language indicating either the President's intent to veto, the President being advised to veto by agencies, or the President being advised to veto by the Administration's senior advisors."
Line-Item Veto: What It Was and Why It Is Unconstitutional
Congress tried to give the President a line-item veto in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996. As the Supreme Court described the statute, it gave the President the power to "cancel in whole" three kinds of provisions that had already been signed into law: "(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; (2) any item of new direct spending; or (3) any limited tax benefit." It was never confined to spending — one of the two cancellations that produced the case was a tax provision.
The Supreme Court struck the Act down in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), 524 U.S. 417, holding, in the Court's own words, that "the cancellation procedures set forth in the Act violate the Presentment Clause, Art. I, §7, cl. 2, of the Constitution." A cancellation, the Court reasoned, meant that "in both legal and practical effect, the President has amended two Acts of Congress by repealing a portion of each", and "there is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the President to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes." As of the July 2019 edition of its veto overview, CRS records that the President "currently has no such power".
Drafted from primary source documents by LegislationPatch's automated research pipeline, then reviewed, verified, and edited by James Shearn, Editor. Every figure and citation is checked against the official text before publication. See our editorial standards and AI disclosure.