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The Issue Politics of Presidential Veto Threats
Author(s) -
Lewallen Jonathan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/psq.12368
Subject(s) - veto , political science , government (linguistics) , politics , presidential system , legislation , scope (computer science) , public administration , law , philosophy , linguistics , computer science , programming language
The heart of agenda setting lies in defining public problems and setting governmental priorities. Veto threats represent conflict between Congress and the president over how to shape policy, yet we know little about the issues on which veto politics take place or longitudinal changes to these dynamics. When a president threatens to veto a bill, he raises its visibility and scope and thus helps shape the federal government's issue agenda. This article examines the issue dynamics of veto threats from 1985 to 2014. When presidents threaten to veto legislation they do so on public priorities and where their threats may be more credible, while divided government leads presidents to try to protect their own issue priorities on spending bills.