George W. Bush has used his veto authority less than any other President in recent history. His father used it more than most other Presidents. I believe that all Presidents should use it much more often. In fact, I believe that any law to be foisted on the American people should be compelling enough to gain the support of a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress. That is, a strong argument can be made that the President should veto every bill that reaches his desk — even those he likes. A possible exception is any bill that rescinds an existing law.

The country could manage very well without most of the laws that Congress passes. Many come from knee-jerk reactions to isolated incidents blown into impending catastrophes by the media. An example is the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act precipitated by the perception that ‘big money’ was taking over campaigns for national office. Unfortunately a veto-everything policy won’t protect us from all bad law; the Sarbannes-Oxley, Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002, coming out of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, passed 423-3 in the House and 99-0 in the Senate.

The Senate already has rules in play that essentially require at least a 60 percent majority for a bill to be passed. It would only take seven more votes to make it a two-thirds majority. But the Senate could eliminate that rule and make it possible for them to pass a bill with a vote of 51-50 (tie vote broken by the Vice President). The house can pass a bill with a 218-217 vote. So laws can be passed that have a major impact on our lives by 269 members of Congress with 267 members dissenting.

Some might say that is the way a democracy is supposed to work — by majority rule. But our form of government is not a pure democracy; it is a constitutional republic. In a nutshell that means that we get to elect representatives by a plurality of the voters, but once elected they are on their own. Practically speaking, our only recourse then is to vote against them when they are up for re-election. As far as I know there is nothing in the constitution to prevent the President from vetoing every bill that comes before him, forcing the Congress to try to override the veto.