Don’t Veto the Truth

Summary

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has made fiscal policy discipline a staple of his presidential campaign. He has run an ad called “I Like Vetoes” roughly 1,000 times, making it the single most expensive ad so far in the 2008 presidential campaign. In the ad Romney states that he “vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations as governor.” What he neglects to mention is that more than 700 of his vetoes were overturned by the Massachusetts Legislature.

We also wonder about Romney’s claim that Massachusetts is “the most liberal state in the country” and “the toughest place” for a Republican. We’ve also heard the same claim made for Vermont, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Analysis

Mitt Romney’s “vetoes” ad has run nearly 1,000 times, mostly in Iowa and New Hampshire, since it first appeared April 4. Since then Romney has devoted more than a third of his entire TV ad budget to this single ad, spending an estimated $1.6 million on it, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of TNS Media Intelligence. That’s by far the most spent for any single ad by a candidate or group in the 2008 presidential race so far.

In the ad, Romney says, “I know how to veto. I like vetoes.” Indeed, there’s little doubt that Romney likes vetoes. He issued more than 800 budgetary vetoes during his four-year tenure. But, he fails to mention that the vast majority of his vetoes were for naught.

Vetoes Turned Back

Boston Herald columnist Wayne Woodlief reported on this in a June 22 article headlined “False Advertising Can’t Sell Romney.” FactCheck.org independently obtained a complete list of veto overrides covering all four of Romney’s budgets. The overrides, it turns out, greatly outnumber the sustained vetoes.

The overrides for fiscal years 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 total 707 of the more than 800 line-item vetoes that Romney issued. So while Romney did indeed veto “hundreds of spending appropriations,” as he says in the ad, he had little to show for them.

Romney also vetoed a minimum wage increase, and a bill that legalized over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles. The Legislature overrode both vetoes.

It’s worth noting the General Court, Massachusetts’ legislative body, was overwhelmingly Democratic while Romney was governor. Even now, the House consists of 141 Democrats and only 19 Republicans, while the Senate has 34 Democrats, five Republicans and one vacant seat. But in some cases even the Republicans went against Romney. His minimum wage veto was overridden unanimously, for example. In that instance the House voted against him 152 to 0, and minutes later the Senate voted 38 to 0.

In the ad, Romney says, “Frankly, I can’t wait to get my hands on Washington!” If elected, however, he will find that his old job gave him more tools than the presidency. In Massachusetts, the governor can eliminate, reduce or place contingencies on specific line-item provisions in the budget. The so-called line-item veto allows a governor to turn down a single, particular spending measure rather than having to veto an entire bill. This is the power Romney used in his hundreds of budgetary vetoes. The president, however, does not have this authority.

There have been several attempts to give the president line-item veto power over the past two decades. President Clinton was granted this authority by Congress in 1996, but two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had overstepped its bounds and rescinded the president’s line-item power. Efforts to grant a line-item veto in a form that might pass muster with the Court continue, but so far they have come to nothing.

Thompson, Too

Romney is not the only former governor and presidential candidate who plays up his veto record while leaving out important details. In the June 5 Republican debate, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson stated that “there isn’t a candidate on either side of the aisle that has had as many vetoes as I have.” It is certainly true that no other candidate has as many vetoes, but Thompson’s statement also needs clarification.

Thompson issued approximately 1,900 vetoes during his tenure, but 1,552 were partial vetoes. Essentially a line-item veto, the Wisconsin partial veto allows the governor to not only remove line-item expenditures, but to rewrite funding levels as well. Again, this is a power that Thompson would not be able to wield in the Oval Office.

Also, since Wisconsin is one of 14 states without gubernatorial term limits, Thompson was able to serve for 14 years in that post – six years longer than any of the other governors running for president could have held the office.