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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Apart from the appropriation bills the legislative record of the third (and final) session of the Sixty-sixth Congress was almost entirely negative. That was to be expected. The only purpose of a short session is to care for supply and Congress is fortunate if it is able to do this. A session of the old Congress after the election of the new, is one of the most striking anomalies of representative government in the United States.
For previous notes on the work of Congress, see American Political Science Review, Vol. 13, p. 251 (1919), Vol. 14, pp. 74, 659 (1920).
1 Congressional Record, p. 3547. On the other hand, Senator Poindexter said that the chief reason for the failure of the Naval Appropriation Bill was the late day (February 15) on which it was received from the House of Representatives. “As it came from the House of Representatives, the bill was in such form that, if it had been enacted into law, it would have led to the demoralization of the American Navy, and to a paralysis of the great organization which has been undertaken.” Ibid., March 3, p. 4571.
2 In the short session of the Sixty-second Congress the sundry civil bill and the Indian appropriation bill failed; at the close of the Sixty-fourth Congress, the army bill, the general deficiency bill, the military academy bill, the river and harbor bill, and the sundry civil bill failed; and at the short session of the Sixty-fifth Congress a filibuster in the Senate prevented the passage of six of the great annual supply acts and one deficiency bill. Congressional Record, p. 4743.
3 See “Hearings before the Committee on the Census, House of Representatives, Sixty-sixth Congress, Third Session,” on H. R. 14498, H. R. 15158, and H. R. 15217, December 28, 1920–January 6, 1921; House Document No. 918, and Congressional Record, January 18 and January 19.
4 The increase of the representatives to 483 would mean that no state would have its representation reduced. It may be added that the debate raised the question of the disfranchisement of the negro in the South and the possibility of legislation under the Fourteenth Amendment.
5 It may be said that during the first two sessions of the Sixty-sixth Congress, Mr. Wilson vetoed fourteen other measures. Two of these were passed over his veto: the prohibition enforcement bill, and the repeal of the daylight saving law. Four measures vetoed became law in substituted and modified bills. In two cases the two-thirds vote was lacking: the resolution (H. J. Res. 327, vetoed May 27, 1920) terminating the state of war and the bill providing a budget system. In three cases no effort was made to override the veto, and at the close of the second session, three measures failed under a pocket veto. Most of these facts have been given in previous notes in this Reveiw, but are here summarized to make a complete record of the vetoes during the Congress.
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