Democrats consider response in Defense authorization showdown

Congressional Democrats are grappling with how to respond to President Bush's unexpected veto of the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill late last month because of a provision that would allow victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue foreign governments in U.S. courts.

One response would be to hold a veto override vote in the House as early as next week, despite White House claims that the president's action constituted a pocket veto and is not subject to a challenge. House Republican leaders have urged their Democratic counterparts to fix the provision and are expected to vote to uphold the veto.

While no formal vote count has yet been taken, a House GOP aide predicted Monday that a "large majority of House Republicans" would vote with the president. Should Democrats succeed, the White House could challenge the override vote -- a move that could tie up the defense bill in a murky constitutional dispute over the definition of a pocket veto, another House aide said.

In late December, President Bush sent a "memorandum of disapproval" to Capitol Hill expressing concerns that the provision would tie up the assets of the current government in Iraq in court claims filed by Saddam Hussein's victims.

In the Dec. 28 document, Bush argued that he could use a pocket veto because Congress was out of session. But Democrats contend the Senate has held pro forma sessions continuously during the Christmas break, making the pocket veto an invalid option. The White House has argued that the House -- the chamber in which the bill originated -- has been out of session since Dec. 19 and thus the rarely used pocket veto is valid. Aside from an override vote, Congress could provide a waiver for Iraq, aides said. The provision still would apply to Iran and Libya, the two other countries most affected by the language.

The president's veto came as a surprise on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers were all but certain that Bush would sign the bill, which passed by wide majorities in both chambers. The provision at issue was sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and added to the Senate's version of the bill during floor debate last year. House and Senate negotiators later agreed to include it in the final conference report, even though both Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Jeffrey Bergner, the assistant secretary of State for legislative affairs, had expressed concerns over the provision in letters to Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., last fall.

The White House did not issue a Statement of Administration Policy before the House and Senate voted on the conference report.

"While my administration objected to an earlier version of this provision in previous communications about the bill, its full impact on Iraq and on our relationship with Iraq has become apparent only in recent days," Bush said in his memo to Congress. The issue also did not receive attention before the Christmas break from congressional Republicans, who widely lauded the bill's passage last month.