Key appropriator promises to block line-item veto language

Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., pledged Monday to ensure the line-item veto never becomes law, as President Bush prepared to again ask Congress for such authority in his State of the Union address Tuesday.

The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on a version that allows lawmakers broad latitude to prevent presidents from canceling tax or spending earmarks in enacted legislation. But Byrd, who considers any such measure an unconstitutional abrogation of congressional prerogatives, drew a line in the sand.

"I will stand back here and let my bones crumble under me, until I no longer have any breath in me" rather than let the line-item veto become law, Byrd said in an impassioned floor speech.

"Such a proposal is a lethal, lethal, lethal aggrandizement of the chief executive's role in the legislative process. Lethal. Deadly," Byrd said. "It is a gross, gross, colossal distortion of the congressional power of the purse. It is a dangerous, dangerous proposition, a wolf in the sheep's clothing of fiscal responsibility."

Debate is pending on the amendment by Budget ranking member Judd Gregg, R-N.H., to the minimum wage bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed cloture on the amendment Monday, which will ripen for a vote Wednesday.

Reid was forced to allow Gregg to offer his amendment to the minimum wage package after losing his first cloture vote last week on the lobbying and ethics measure. Reid, who refused to allow a vote on Gregg's amendment, was unable to garner the 60 votes to end debate on the lobbying bill and move to final passage.

As part of a deal Thursday, Gregg and GOP leaders dropped demands for a vote during the lobbying and ethics debate in exchange for assurances they would get a vote this week.

Gregg would need 60 votes to end debate and move to a vote on his amendment; he is considered unlikely to get the votes over opposition from Byrd and Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "It would do virtually nothing about our debt, but it will transfer power to a president who already has too much power," Conrad said.

Gregg argues he has tailored the measure to address constitutional concerns and preserve Congress' power of the purse. "It's a much, much weaker, dramatically weaker proposal than what is known as the line-item veto, which passed here in the early 1990s," he said on the floor, noting that a more apt term for his amendment would be "enhanced rescission" authority.

Regardless, Gregg said the measure would allow lawmakers to "to say to the taxpayer, 'yeah, that bill may have been a $500 billion bill and maybe there were some things in there that we shouldn't have done.'"

Gregg's plan would limit presidents to four rescission packages per year, and Congress would have to approve them on an up-or-down vote. Gregg altered his amendment from last week to ensure senators would have the right to strike items from a rescission package before proceeding to a vote on the overall package. He said it was similar to a substitute amendment offered in 1995 by Byrd and then-Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D.

Conrad noted one "profound" difference: Gregg's amendment would allow a president to rescind items in new mandatory spending proposals, which might give the executive branch significant leverage in efforts to overhaul Social Security and Medicare.

Last year the House passed a modified version of the line-item veto bill with 35 Democratic supporters, but the Senate never took it up.

On Wednesday, House Budget ranking member Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the lead sponsor, plans to introduce a line-item veto bill with Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo.

"We think the president is going to make the line-item veto among his top fiscal priorities," Ryan said. His bill would be similar to Gregg's language, but would not allow lawmakers to strike individual earmarks in a presidential rescission package. Noting the opposition of Byrd and others, Ryan said it was clear "we need to make this bipartisan."

Greta Wodele contributed to this report.