The New York Times reports that the White House is threatening to veto any anti-torture legislation that reaches the president's desk without an exemption for the CIA. Such a bill, sponsored by Republican senator John McCain, was recently attached as an ammendment to a military spending bill. The ammendment passed the senate with a 90-9 vote.
The White House is reportedly opposed to the ammendment because, "the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism." Personally, I vote with the 90 senators who feel that presidential flexibility to deal with terrorists should stop short of the kind of things normally seen in bad S&M spam.
3 comments:
I'm a foreigner so I don't know US rules completely but I thought that if the Senate voted by more than two thirds it overrode a presidential veto.
It requires a second vote after the veto has occurred, but yes, the Senate can override a veto with a 2/3 super-majority. And, with Bush as weak as he is these days, enough Republicans might actually defy him to reach that 2/3.
That is almost, but not quite, correct. Both houses of congress need to vote to overturn the veto, not just the senate. There is somewhat less support for the measure in the House of Representatives, and there may not be enough votes there.
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