Ways and Means
Special Prosecutor Clement Rollins (1) issues subpoenas to the staff, and CJ decides the White House needs a new enemy, namely, the House of Representatives. Toby and Josh are supposed to have a meeting with the Ways and Means Committee on the estate tax (2), but it then becomes clear that the Republicans seek to repeal it and that black Democrats may support the Republicans this time; Bartlet plans to respond by making his first veto (3). Campaign head Bruno Gianelli gets upset that labor leader Victor Campos is showing signs of disloyalty to Bartlet, and Campos wants amnesty for undocumented illegal immigrants (4) in return for his continued support. Bartlet decides to let a forest fire continue to burn and he misses Mrs. Landingham. Ainsley sets Donna up with a Republican Congressional staffer.
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Special prosecutor / Independent counsel (last updated November 4, 2001) (back to top)
For most of the late 20th century, alleged wrongdoings by a member of the executive branch of the government were handled under the provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. The act became law in the wake of Watergate and expired on June 30, 1999 after the investigation into alleged financial wrongdoings by President Bill Clinton led to an impeachment proceeding over whether he lied about his sexual relationship with a White House intern.
Under the independent counsel provisions, the attorney general would conduct a preliminary, limited investigation upon receiving specific allegations that high-ranking executive branch officials had violated federal criminal law. After 90 days, the attorney general would decide whether the charges warranted further investigation and, if deemed necessary, request a special prosecutor. This request would be heard by a special division of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, consisting of three senior or retired appellate judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. This panel of judges would select a special prosecutor, define his jurisdiction, and release reports to the public.
The attorney general thus had the power to seek the appointment of a special prosecutor and could, for "extraordinary impropriety," remove him from office. These decisions were not reviewable by any court.
Special prosecutors were appointed in at least 18 different cases under the provisions, as listed below. Not every case that warranted preliminary investigation resulted in a request for a special prosecutor; up to 1994, only 13 of 37 cases triggering a preliminary investigation led to a request for a special prosecutor.
- Carter administration (2). Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan, special prosecution initiated in 1979. White House staff member Timothy Kraft, 1980.
- Reagan administration (7). Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan, special prosecution initiated in 1981. Attorney General Edwin Meese, 1984. Justice Department official Theodore Olson (now Solicitor General in the administration of George W. Bush), 1986. White House aide Michael Deaver, 1986. Iran-Contra scandal involving Oliver North, among others, 1986. Wedtech scandal involving White House aide Lynn Nofziger and Meese, 1987.
- Bush administration (2). Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce, special prosecution initiated in 1989. Allegations of misuse of passport files of newly elected President Bill Clinton, 1992. There were also two other minor cases giving rise to a special prosecutor, but information here was not disclosed.
- Clinton administration (7). Whitewater scandal, first investigated by Robert Fiske and then by Kenneth Starr, initiated in 1994 (Fiske was initially appointed on an ad hoc basis in January 1994 during a period when the statute had lapsed, and was replaced by the special division upon the law's renewal). Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, 1994. HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, 1995. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, 1995. Americorps head Eli Segal, 1996. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, 1998. Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, 1998. Attorney General Janet Reno conducted preliminary investigations into, among other things, fund-raising activities by Bill Clinton and Al Gore but concluded that such cases did not warrant the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Before 1978, federal special prosecutors were appointed on an ad hoc basis on three occasions in the 20th century. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge appointed special prosecutors to investigate the Teapot Dome scandal. President Truman's attorney general appointed a special prosecutor to investigate tax scandals in 1951. And most famously, Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford appointed a total of four special prosecutors to investigate the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.
The independent counsel statute had many enemies, often depending somewhat on the politics of the day and who was the target (some argued it was also unconstitutional, but it was upheld 7-1 in the 1988 case of Morrison v. Olson; Scalia's dissent there was often brought up by Democrats a decade later to attack the statute). Critics said that the appointment and oversight process was politicized and partisan, that the act covered too many officials who could have been investigated by the Department of Justice without conflict, and that the process encouraged unwarranted prosecutions. Both Attorney General Janet Reno and Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr ultimately testified in 1999 against renewing the law.
With the lapsing of the independent counsel provisions in 1999, any new investigations of high-ranking executive branch officials are to be handled by the Department of Justice on an ad hoc basis once again. In June 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno established rules for when she would appoint a special prosecutor. Under these rules, she would do so only upon deciding that an investigation would pose a conflict of interest for the Justice Department and that an outside prosecutor was in the public interest.
Sources: Katy J. Harriger, The Special Prosecutor in American Politics (2nd edition, revised) (University of Kansas Press, 2000). David Johnston, Attorney General taking control as independent counsel law dies, New York Times, June 30, 1999. The Special Division of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is available on-line here.
Estate Tax (last updated 8/12/01) (back to top)
The federal estate tax, sometimes known as a "death tax" by its critics, taxes the estates of the wealthiest Americans upon their deaths. Under pre-2001 law, it affected about 2 percent of Americans who died each year and it accounted for about $35 billion in revenues (as the chart above shows, it accounts for less than 2 percent of annual government revenue). Under Bush's tax cuts signed into law in June 2001, estate tax rates will be reduced and more Americans exempt from coverage until the tax is fully repealed in 2010. The resulting loss of about $300 billion in revenue makes up a significant component of Bush's overall tax-cut package, which has been estimated at around $1.35 trillion.
Estate taxes currently are assessed on the net worth of an individual at death, also counting gifts made before death. Under pre-2001 tax law, there was no tax on the first $675,000 of an individual's net worth (this exempted amount was to rise to $1 million by 2006). Fewer than 48,000 Americans were thus covered under the tax, about 2 percent of annual deaths. Farms and family businesses made up a small percentage of those subject to the tax, but had special protections such as a higher exemption threshold.
Above the exemption threshold, estates were taxed under pre-2001 tax law at rates beginning at 37 percent and rising to 55 percent. This tax has resulted in about $35 billion annually in tax revenue, a small figure when compared to income tax revenues of about $1 trillion and corporate profit tax revenues of about $200 billion, but over the course of the next decade, a large component of Bush's overall tax cut.
The debate over the estate tax resulted in some unusual alliances. In February 2001, a group of wealthy Americans including Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Bill Gates' father publicly came out in favor of retaining the estate tax. In an ad that ran in the New York Times and other papers that month, the millionaires argued that "repealing the estate tax would enrich the heirs of America's millionaires and billionaires while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet." Many of these millionaires contribute to charities which are dependent on the giftgiving that the estate tax is said to encourage.
Nonetheless, the House and Senate passed a package of tax cuts including an estate-tax cut on May 26, 2001. The House vote was 240-154 with 28 Democrats and an independent joining all Republicans. The Senate vote was 58-33 with 12 Democrats joining 46 Republicans; two Republican senators, John McCain and Lincoln Chaffee, voted against the bill. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on June 7, 2001.
Under the new tax law, the estate tax exemption is raised to $1 million in 2002, four years earlier than originally planned, and continues to rise to $3.5 million by 2009. Rates on those estates still covered are reduced beginning in 2002. As currently planned, the estate tax is to be fully repealed by 2010.
Beyond the estate tax, other tax cuts are also phased in gradually over the next decade and thus could be repealed or expanded by the time they become effective; lower income tax rates do not become fully implemented until 2006, new benefits for married couples not until 2008, and the doubling of the tax credit for children not until 2010. All tax cuts are to expire on December 31, 2010, returning US tax laws to what they were on June 6, 2001, unless renewed.
For more on the federal budget, go here.
Sources: Paul Krugman, Fuzzy Math: the essential guide to the Bush tax plan (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001). William Gale and Joel Slemrod, Resurrecting the Estate Tax (Brookings Institution, June 2000). David E. Rosenbaum, Subject to review: Even as President signs tax cut measure, Democrats and GOP talk of revisions, New York Times, June 8, 2001. Citizens for Tax Justice, available online here.
Presidential veto (last updated November 4, 2001) (back to top)
Under Article I, Section 7 of the constitution, the President of the United States has the authority to veto legislation passed by Congress. This power can prevent the passage of legislation opposed by the President, and the threat of a veto can shape legislation long before it reaches his desk for his signature or veto.
Once passed by both houses of Congress, a bill is presented to the President of the United States for signing. He has 10 days from presentation to sign it into law or to return it with objections to Congress for reconsideration; if he does not act on the bill within 10 days, then it becomes law as if he had signed it unless Congress has already adjourned.
There are two types of vetoes embedded in this process. First, the regular veto occurs when the President returns legislation to Congress; this is a qualified negative veto, which Congress can override by a two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Second, the pocket veto occurs when Congress adjourns before the 10 days are up; this is an absolute veto which Congress cannot override, and Congress must re-legislate the bill all over again in the next session.
Use of both kinds of veto power has become more common over the course of the presidency. The first presidents used it sparingly and only on their belief that the legislation before them was unconstitutional: George Washington used it just twice during his two terms in office, and Andrew Jackson, the seventh president, issued 12 vetoes (5 regular, 7 pocket) during his two terms, more than all of his predecessors combined. By contrast, every president in the 20th century issued an average of several vetoes a year over the course of his tenure in office.
Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, and Harry S. Truman vetoed the most legislation, but many of these vetoes were of private bills generally enacted in relation to war-related pension and other claims. Looking only at public bills, FDR and Cleveland are still the most prolific with a veto, with FDR vetoing 138 public bills during his three terms, and Cleveland a total of 102 bills during his two non-consecutive terms. Truman's count falls to 75 public-bill vetoes while he finished FDR's term and then served his own.
Congress has overridden only a handful of regular vetoes from Washington to Clinton, overriding about 7.1 percent of the regular vetoes during this period. The presidents with the highest percentage of vetoes overridden are Franklin Pierce (5 out of his 9 vetoes overridden) and Andrew Johnson (15 of his 21 vetoes overridden), with Ford (12 of his 48), Nixon (7 of his 26) and Wilson (6 of his 33) in the second tier.
As for recent presidents:
- Jimmy Carter: 31 total vetoes (13 regular, 18 pocket). Two of his 13 regular vetoes were overridden (6 percent).
- Ronald Reagan: 78 total vetoes (39 regular, 39 pocket). Nine of his 39 regular vetoes were overridden (12 percent).
- George Bush: 44 total vetoes (29 regular, 15 pocket; he also tried to pocket veto two bills, but these bills were considered enacted into law and are not generally counted as pocket vetoes). One of his 29 regular vetoes was overridden (2 percent).
- Bill Clinton: 38 (37 regular, 1 pocket). Two of his 37 regular vetoes were overridden (5 percent).
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan publicly campaigned for an item veto (sometimes known as a line-item veto) that would give the president power to strike certain parts of legislation presented to him; most state governors have long had such power. In 1996, Congress enacted legislation giving the president this item-veto power for certain federal spending and tax bills, but the United States Supreme Court held that such power was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers since it allowed the president to enact a "different law" from that passed by Congress. An item veto, the Court said, was possible only with a constitutional amendment.
Sources: Robert J. Spitzer, The Presidential Veto: Touchstone of the American Presidency (State University of New York Press, 1988). Richard A. Watson, Presidential Vetoes and Public Policy (University Press of Kansas, 1993). The Clerk of the House of Representatives has a listing of vetoes, available on-line here. Clinton v. New York, No. 97-1374, United States Supreme Court (1998).
Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants (last updated October 2001) (back to top)
Under the legalization provisions of the Immigration and Reform and Control Act of 1986, more than 2.6 million illegal aliens, particularly from Mexico, who had been in the United States since 1982 or were special agricultural workers, were given a form of amnesty in the late 1980s and early 1990s when they were granted permanent resident status. The IRCA provisions thus accounted for the massive increase in immigrants from Mexico in 1989 through 1992; about 95,000 immigrants were admitted to the United States from Mexico in 1988, but the number went up almost ten times in 1991 before falling again after 1992.
There are about 5 million people who had illegally immigrated to the United States, according to a 1998 estimate by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, with about 275,000 new such persons a year. Mexicans made up the majority of this population (54%), followed by people from El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, Haiti, and the Philippines. About 40 percent of the total undocumented population resided in California, with others concentrated in Texas, New York, Florida, New Jersey and Arizona.
Immigrants, as defined by United States law, are persons lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States. United States law gives preferential immigration status to persons with a close family relationship with a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident, persons with needed job skills, or persons who qualify as refugees. Accordingly, the law does not directly refer to specific countries or regions of origin, but it indirectly reinforces and builds upon populations already in country.
In 1998, the Immigration and Naturalization Service counted 660,447 legal immigrants, with 357,037 new arrivals and 303,440 residents who had adjusted their status. Of these, 43 percent were the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, 30 percent were family-sponsored immigrants, 12 percent were employment-based immigrants, and 8 percent were refugees or asylees. As for country or region of origin, 33 percent were from Asia, 20 percent from Mexico, 14 percent from Europe, 12 percent from the Carribean, 7 percent from South America, and five percent from Central America.
For more on immigration and other migration issues, go here.
Sources: 1998 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (available on-line here).
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