I’m too lazy to research this, but is the president compelled by law to sign or veto an item passed by the House and Senate, or can he just let it languish on his desk in the same way hairy roid did with all those items passed by the house?
And if the president is compelled to act, must he do so within a specific time frame?
A pocket veto is a particular type of presidential veto. The U.S. Constitution limits the President's period for decision on whether to sign or veto any legislation to ten days (not including Sundays) while the United States Congress is in session. The Constitution provides for two types of vetoes: a return or regular veto and a pocket veto. A return veto happens when the president sends a bill, along with his objections, back to the houses of Congress. Congress can override the veto by 2/3 vote of both houses, whereupon the bill becomes law. A pocket veto happens if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period, then the bill does not become law. Congress can adjourn and designate an agent to receive veto messages and other communications so that a pocket veto doesn't happen, an action Congresses have taken routinely for decades. If the president neither signs nor vetoes a bill when Congress is in session, the bill becomes law without his signature after 10 days.[6] Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/getting-the-presidents-signature-on-a-congressiona.html
After Congress sends the president a final bill, he has 10 days to act on it in one of two ways:
•Sign it into law. If he doesn’t want to sign it but doesn’t want to veto it, he can simply ignore it and it becomes law in ten days (excepting Sundays) while Congress is in session.
•Veto it. The word “veto” literally means “I refuse” in Latin, and the president has the constitutional power to stop a piece of legislation in its tracks, even after it’s been through the entire legislative process. It’s the Constitution’s ultimate executive check on legislation.
The president can veto a bill in two ways:
• The return veto: The return veto mechanism is a straightforward provision in the Constitution. The president simply refuses to sign the legislation into law and sends it back to Congress with a message explaining why the legislation wasn’t signed.
• The pocket veto: In a pocket veto, the president neither vetoes a bill nor signs it — but if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period when the president has the bill, the bill doesn’t become law. In other words, the president puts the bill in his pocket, waits out the Congress, and nothing happens.
Overriding a veto
When the president vetoes a bill, the legislation is dead unless Congress takes action.
Congress can override the veto, and in doing so, passes the bill over the president’s formal objection. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds majority vote of the members present and voting (in other words, those who are actually in the chamber rather than two-thirds of the total) in each chamber.
An override vote is a momentous step and difficult to win. In recent years the mere threat of a veto has been enough to convince members not to proceed with provisions that the president doesn’t like