Definition
A formal act by which the executive branch of a government refuses to assent to a bill passed by the legislature, thereby preventing the bill from becoming law unless the legislature takes further action to override the refusal. In constitutional systems, the veto is a structural mechanism of separation of powers — a check the executive holds over legislative output.
At the federal level in the United States, the President's veto power derives from the Presentment Clause, which requires that every bill passed by both chambers of Congress be presented to the President, who may sign it or return it unsigned with objections. A vetoed bill may still become law if both chambers override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
Two distinct forms operate in practice:
1. EXPRESS VETO: The executive actively returns the bill to the legislature with written objections. The legislature retains the opportunity to override.
2. POCKET VETO: Where the legislature adjourns within ten days of presenting a bill and the President takes no action, the bill does not become law. Because Congress is not in session to receive a return, no override is possible. The pocket veto is thus more absolute in effect than the express veto.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A political right to disapprove of and thereby stop a decision, law, or process; also used broadly for any authoritative prohibition or interdiction.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An authoritative prohibition or negative; a forbidding; also the constitutional power vested in a chief executive to forbid carrying out projects of another governmental department.
The common and legal meanings are largely aligned, but the common usage permits far looser application — one may speak colloquially of a parent "vetoing" a child's plans, or of a committee member "vetoing" a proposal. In legal and constitutional usage, veto is a term of art describing a formal, constitutionally grounded executive power with defined procedural consequences. The casual usage carries none of the structural or procedural weight the legal term implies.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
EXPRESS VETO: Active return of a bill to the legislature with stated objections. Triggers the override process.
POCKET VETO: Inaction by the executive when the legislature has adjourned, resulting in the bill's failure without any possibility of legislative override.
LINE-ITEM VETO: A power, recognized in some state constitutions, allowing an executive to reject discrete provisions of an appropriations bill rather than the bill as a whole. At the federal level, the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 was struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Presentment Clause.
ABSOLUTE VETO: A veto that permanently destroys the bill. Rare in modern democratic systems; historically associated with monarchical prerogative.
QUALIFIED VETO: A veto that suspends rather than destroys the bill, leaving the legislature the ability to override. The U.S. federal model is a qualified veto.
COUNCIL OF REVISION / PRIVY COUNCIL MODEL: Some early state constitutions vested the veto in a council rather than a single executive. This form largely disappeared from American constitutional practice after the founding era.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in constitutional law must distinguish carefully between the veto power's procedural mechanics (which are fixed by constitutional text) and the political and doctrinal disputes that have grown around its edges. The line-item veto question is the sharpest example: the power exists in dozens of state systems but was constitutionally foreclosed at the federal level, and conflating state and federal materials on this point is a persistent research error.
The pocket veto generates recurrent doctrinal ambiguity around the question of what counts as an "adjournment" that triggers the power. Intrasession adjournments have been contested, and executive and legislative branch positions have not fully converged. Researchers should not assume that the federal rule is settled outside the core case of final adjournment at the end of a Congress.
In historical corpus materials, veto appears in two quite distinct registers: the Roman/classical register (the tribune's intercession) and the modern constitutional register. Sources from the founding period and early republic may move between these registers without flagging the shift, using the Roman precedent as both analogy and legitimation for the constitutional design. Burrill and Anderson both gesture toward this Roman origin; researchers working in founding-era texts should be alert to the argumentative use being made of the classical reference.
At the state level, gubernatorial veto powers vary significantly — some governors hold stronger veto authority than the President (such as the line-item veto for appropriations), while the override thresholds and timing rules differ by state constitution. Research confined to federal doctrine will miss this variation entirely.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the basics: veto is Latin for "I forbid," it originates with the Roman tribunate, and in modern constitutional usage it designates the executive's power to reject legislative bills. Burrill traces the Roman usage most carefully, noting that the tribune's act was also called intercedere (interceding), and cites Adam's Roman Antiquities for the classical background. Anderson likewise grounds the term in Roman practice before moving to American constitutional application, and notably quotes the Presentment Clause language directly — a useful reminder that historical dictionaries occasionally embed primary source text within their definitions.
Black's (both editions) offers the most practically useful formulation for American legal research, distinguishing absolute from qualified vetoes with precision. This distinction does real analytical work: the American federal veto is qualified (the legislature can override), while the absolute veto — where the executive's refusal terminates the bill permanently — survives mainly in comparative and historical contexts.
What the historical dictionaries collectively understate is the complexity that grows around timing and adjournment in the pocket veto context, and they are entirely silent on the line-item veto, which developed as a serious constitutional issue well after these dictionaries were compiled. The early editions of Black's also predate the concentrated twentieth-century scholarship on the veto's interaction with bicameralism and presentment requirements. Researchers relying solely on these historical entries will have accurate foundations but significant gaps on the doctrinal evolution.
Jurisdictional Note
The federal veto power is governed by Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution and is structurally distinct from gubernatorial veto powers, which are creatures of individual state constitutions. State override thresholds, time limits for action, and line-item veto authority vary considerably. Researchers should treat federal and state veto doctrine as parallel but separate bodies of law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Veto Power — Line-Item Veto, Pocket Veto, and Constitutional Limits (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia)
The Legislative Process — Bicameralism, Presentment, and the Veto (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia)