After the roll-call is completed, the presiding officer announces the pairs.  Members who belong to different political parties may agree that they shall be recorded on opposite sides of party questions, whether they are present or not.  Or pairs may be arranged for particular votes only.  This device enables a member to be absent from his seat without feeling that his vote is needed.

The President’s Power in Law-Making.—­A bill which has received a majority vote in both houses is next sent to the President.

Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal and proceed to reconsider it.  If after such reconsideration two-thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house it shall become a law.  But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house respectively.  If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.

There are then three ways in which a bill may become a law. (1) It may pass by majority vote in both houses and be signed by the President. (2) It may, after being vetoed by the President, be passed by two-thirds vote in both houses. (3) It will become a law if the President neither signs nor vetoes it within ten days, unless these are at the end of the session.

The framers of the Constitution intended that the veto power should be a check, though not an absolute one, upon hasty or unwise legislation.  The President may cause a bill to fail by neither signing nor vetoing it during the last ten days of a session.  The term pocket veto has been applied to this method of defeating bills.

SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS AND REFERENCES.

1.  Copies of the Congressional Record and the Congressional Directory furnish interesting illustrations of the topics treated in this chapter.

2.  What difference is there in the granting of recognition in the Senate and House?  Harrison, This Country of Ours, 45-48.

3.  How are obstructive tactics carried on?  Alton, Among the Law-makers, Chapter 20.

4.  Reinsch, Young Citizen’s Reader, 198-213.  Marriott, Uncle Sam’s Business, 8-16.