On the recordJanuary 13, 2010
I think the gentleman from Florida has summed up the situation pretty well. In December, the House and Senate passed a 5-day continuing resolution in order to give the President time to sign the Defense appropriations bill. The President received the CR and the Defense appropriations bill on the same day, December 19. He signed the Defense bill, thereby avoiding the need for the stopgap funding in the CR. Since the President signed the Defense appropriations measure quickly, I agree that the CR was not needed to keep the government open. The President sent the CR back to the House, as the gentleman indicated, with his veto. But in that veto message, he suggested in some ways that he had, in fact, pocket vetoed the legislation. But the fact is clear that the Congress was here to receive a message, and we do not consider it a pocket veto. Therefore, we feel that the appropriate action to be taken is to sustain the veto and take this action to demonstrate that, in our judgment, a pocket veto is not appropriate, that the President exercised a regular veto and it should be treated as such.
