It is hard enough to run the hurdles posed by a bicameral system where, unlike many countries around the world, each House has an absolute veto on the other. It is, I believe, indefensible to give a single individual, who has no conceivable claim to greater legitimacy than the collective House and Senate, the power to set aside their expressed political judgment. As noted above, I am willing to support a presidential veto based on constitutional doubts about legislation; this is why I refused to join in criticizing the Bush Administration for the very idea of issuing signing statements or arguing that the President has no duty to enforce laws that would, in his view, violate the Constitution. But none of this justifies the countermajoritarian policy-based presidential veto that contributes to the ever-increasing, well-merited, view of the American public that nothing really can get done through our present political system.
