Can Congress say no after it already said yes? For more than 50 years, the legislative veto let Congress give power to the president, then yank it back when it didn’t like the results. It was a political safety net, a constitutional gray area, and a ticking time bomb.

In this episode, hosts Savannah Eccles Johnston and Matthew Brogdon unpack how this backdoor power worked, why it exploded in the landmark case INS v. Chadha, and what that means for modern government.

They trace its roots from tariff tweaks and emergency powers to immigration enforcement and massive presidential discretion. The Supreme Court said the legislative veto was unconstitutional. But here’s the twist: Congress’s sweeping delegations of power to the president stayed in place. So now we’re stuck with a powerful executive and no real legislative check.

In This Episode

• (00:00:02) Introduction and overview
• (00:00:16) Executive veto vs. legislative veto explained
• (00:02:25) Historical background of legislative veto
• (00:03:26) Types of legislative vetoes
• (00:04:24) INS v. Chadha case introduction
• (00:04:50) Details of the Chadha case
• (00:06:46) Judicial and due process concerns
• (00:09:09) Constitutional issues with legislative veto
• (00:11:36) Supreme Court ruling in INS v. Chadha
• (00:12:11) Impact on existing laws
• (00:13:52) Tariffs and legislative-veto example
• (00:15:01) Expansion of presidential power post-Chadha
• (00:17:04) Political and constitutional implications
• (00:19:20) Three options for addressing legislative veto
• (00:20:28) Supreme Court’s dilemma, possible solutions
• (00:27:18) Alternative legislative solutions

Notable Quotes

• [00:01:10] “Imagine Congress authorizes the President to tear down some of the hideous brutalist architecture in Washington, D.C., and put beautiful buildings, big, beautiful buildings in its place. Right. Which I'm in favor of.” — Matthew Brogdon

• [00:08:23] “If you had to pick any deliberative body to decide a question about your fate... no one would look at a congressional committee and go, that's the group I want deciding.” — Matthew Brogdon

• [00:12:38] "We live in a post-Chadha period now where presidents still have this delegated authority, but there is no congressional check."— "Savannah Eccles Johnston

• [13:57] “So the Congress passed back in the early 1900s, something called the TWEA. And you know a good chunk about this. It's gives the President the capacity to have some discretion over certain tariffs and how Congress can respond to that then."— "Savannah Eccles Johnston

• [00:17:38] “The legislative veto was actually a sort of incentive for Congress to delegate away absolutely way too much of its authority.” — Matthew Brogdon

• [00:19:25] “You can either say the legislative veto is necessary in modern government, we're going to overlook constitutional issues. Two, you can say the legislative veto is unconstitutional and deny it, but be okay with delegations of authority to the president continuing anyway."— Savannah Eccles Johnston

• [00:16:37] "Did Congress intend to grant the President that level of unchecked tariff power where it's unquestionably a power of Congress to control tariffs in the Constitution? They've delegated some of this authority without the capacity to say, except we don't like it in this circumstance.— "Savannah Eccles Johnston

• [00:21:03] “The legislative veto is pretty clearly unconstitutional. I mean, as a matter of constitutional structure, it's very hard to square it with Article 1, Section 7.” — Matthew Brogdon