Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey wants to know if lawmakers can override a governor's line-item vetoes by voting on the entire bill.
On Friday, Dempsey, R-St. Charles, sent Attorney General Chris Koster a formal request for a legal opinion on the question, after Gov. Jay Nixon in June vetoed about 100 line items in 13 of the Legislature's 15 budget bills passed last spring.
Noting that the Constitution allows the governor to make line-item vetoes, and schedules a veto session for lawmakers to consider overriding a governor's vetoes, Dempsey asked Koster if "such override votes cast during the constitutionally mandated veto session ... should be taken individually upon each line item to be reconsidered or, whether a single vote on the underlying bill is sufficient to express the will of the Missouri Senate on each individual line item contained therein."
Koster spokesman Eric Slusher said Saturday, in an email: "We received the request on Friday afternoon, and are reviewing the issue."
At his half-hour news conference Thursday afternoon, Nixon made it clear he thinks there's no question for the attorney general to answer.
"The Missouri Constitution is clear that legislators must go line by line to override my line-item vetoes," Nixon told reporters.
Channing Ansley, Nixon's communications director, reminded a reporter that the requirement is in the same section of the Constitution that allows the line-item veto in the first place.
Article IV, Section 26, reads: "The governor may object to one or more items or portions of items of appropriation of money in any bill presented to him, while approving other portions of the bill. On signing it he shall append to the bill a statement of the items or portions of items to which he objects and such items or portions shall not take effect."
The section then requires the governor to send his veto messages "to the house in which the bill originated" if the Legislature still is in-session when he makes the veto, or to the secretary of state if lawmakers are not in-session.
The Constitution says "the items or portions objected to shall be reconsidered separately."
A separate section, in Article III, requires the General Assembly to "automatically reconvene on the first Wednesday following the second Monday in September for a period not to exceed 10 calendar days for the sole purpose of considering bills" and line-items vetoed by the governor after the annual legislative session has ended.
But, in his Friday request to Koster, Dempsey noted that "legislative precedent is sparse on the question" of how line-item vetoes should be handled in an override attempt.
Dempsey also noted that, to avoid a "separation of powers" issue between the Legislature and Koster, who's part of the executive branch of government, "Any ... opinion of the attorney general will be viewed by the Missouri Senate as merely advisory."