It's about time

Congress Hands Bush First Veto Override

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 8, 2007; 2:31 PM

A year after Democrats won control of Capitol Hill, Congress delivered its clearest victory yet over President Bush today, resoundingly overturning Bush's veto of a $23 billion water resources measure -- the first veto override of his presidency.

The Senate voted to override the veto, 79-14, with 34 Republicans abandoning the president and just 12 standing by him. The Senate vote followed one in the House, which rejected the veto Tuesday, 361-54. Both votes were well over the two-thirds majorities needed to defy Bush.

"I hope that the Congress feels good about what we've done," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "I believe in the institution of the legislative branch of government. I think it should exist, and for seven years, this man has ignored us."

"We have said today as a Congress to this president, 'You can't just keep rolling over us like this. You can't make everything a fight, because we'll see it through'," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a primary architect of the law.

Today's override marks only the 107th time that Congress has overridden a presidential veto in the nation's history. Congress overrode two of Bill Clinton's 22 vetoes and just one of George H.W. Bush's 44 vetoes. Gerald R. Ford, who vetoed 66 bills, and Harry S. Truman, who vetoed 250, each had 12 overridden, the most of any president other than Andrew Johnson in the mid-19th century.

As obscure as the Water Resources Development Act may be, Congress's action sets the stage for much larger spending and tax fights to come in the next few weeks. The House tonight is scheduled to send Bush a $151 billion measure to fund federal health, education and labor programs, a bill that Bush has promised to veto because it exceeds his request by nearly $10 billion.

The Senate is likely to give final approval to a $459.3 billion defense spending this evening as well, one that increases defense spending by $35.7 billion -- or 9.5 percent -- over last fiscal year. Bush is expected to sign that legislation.

Democrats made clear today they will relentlessly compare the president's willingness to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense and war, while he rejects much smaller increases for domestic spending. Republican leaders vowed to round up enough votes to sustain Bush's vetoes on the spending bills, even though they acknowledged that many Republicans are likely to break with the White House.

Indeed, both parties sounded a discordant note on fiscal rectitude today. House Democratic leaders, defending a tax measure that will come to a vote tomorrow with offsetting tax hikes, largely on Wall Street titans, claimed to represent the party of fiscal responsibility -- even as they were pushing through some of the biggest domestic spending increases in years.

"We are making the hard decisions that Republicans refused to make, and continue to refuse to make," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

Republicans said they were the party of small government and austerity, even as they abandoned the White House in droves to push through a water bill that, if fully funded, would build over 900 projects valued at a total of $38 billion, according to the White House.

"Sadly, because the authors of this bill have rained a few earmarks to every member's district, Congress didn't have the courage to stop this reckless overspending," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), whose dissent on the measure was a lonely one.

The bill would authorize billions of dollars in coastal restoration, river navigation and dredging projects, levee and port construction and other Army Corps of Engineers public works efforts. Seven years in the making, the measure took on particular political resonance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as Gulf Coast lawmakers secured nearly $2 billion in restoration and levee construction projects for the region. The bill also would continue projects such as the restoration of the Everglades and the dredging of the upper Mississippi River, while expanding oversight of the Army Corps.

The measure authorizes $30 million to reduce nitrogen flowing from the Washington-area Blue Plains sewage treatment plant into the Chesapeake Bay. It also provides $40 million for other Chesapeake Bay pollution reduction projects.

Another $192 million is authorized for the expansion of the bay's Poplar Island project, which involves rebuilding the island with dredged material from the channels that serve the Port of Baltimore. It includes a $30 million increase for Chesapeake Bay oyster restoration and an additional $20 million for other bay environmental protection projects.

But the law merely authorizes such projects. Lawmakers who support the projects now must secure funding through the House and Senate appropriations committees, with no guarantees. Senate Republicans repeatedly justified their votes by saying the law actually does not spend a cent, but Boxer made it clear that the authorizations would speed the allocation of funds.