When the Legislature passes a bill, the governor can opt to either approve or reject the piece of legislation from becoming law.  He can approve the bill by either signing it or if he doesn’t sign it within 14 days and the legislature is still in session, it will automatically become law.  If he decides he wants to reject the bill, this can be done by either vetoing the legislation within 14 days of receiving it when the legislature is in session or if the legislature has adjourned Sine Die he can execute a pocket veto by simply not signing the bill.  If the governor vetoes a bill while the legislature is still in session, the vetoed bill, along with a veto message, are then returned to the chamber where the bill was originally introduced.

The vast majority of bills are signed into law by the governor.  In a given legislative cycle, only a handful or less are vetoed.  Often times, it’s on the less side of that equation. When the governor does veto a bill, the legislature has the option of pursuing a veto override to try to get the bill into law.  Veto overrides are a rarely used mechanism that serve as a legislative check and balance on the executive branch.

Veto overrides are challenging from a procedural and political standpoint.  Procedurally, the legislature needs to override the veto by a two-thirds vote of members that are elected and serving in each chamber. Assuming there are no vacancies in the 110-member House, they would need 74 votes.  In the Senate, again assuming all 38 seats have a serving Senator, they would need 26 votes.  That is a very high threshold to reach, especially on legislation that may be controversial.   From a political standpoint, if the governor is from the same political party as the majority parties in the House and Senate, the chambers may not want to pursue an override on the governor of their own political party.  But, if the legislature does achieve a two-thirds vote to override the veto, the bill will then go into law.

If the legislature isn’t able to muster the votes needed to override the veto, or simply decides not to pursue the override option, they can simply: (1) let the override stand; (2) table the bill; (3) re-refer the bill back to committee; or (4) postpone consideration of the override to a future specific date or indefinitely.  

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