BLAIR LEE III, Acting Governor

3147

confined to the matter of salaries traditionally
within the peculiar province of the legislative
branch, not impinging upon presidential functions
or veto rights, and having no effect upon persons
other than those whose salaries are at
issue—does not fall within the class of acts
that Congress must perform through the

affirmative concurrence of both Houses, but
rather is properly exercisable by a single House.
We reach this decision by virtue of the simple
fact that the single House, in voting by a
majority to block the otherwise automatic
effectiveness of the President's recommendations,
is not doing anything for which the Constitution
requires the concurrence of both Houses. The
single House is certainly not making new law.
Plaintiffs seem to think that the House, when it
casts its 'veto,' is attempting to make law,
which act they define as one that 'repeals,
modifies, or amends the law.' However, even
accepting that definition for the sake of
argument, plaintiffs' view is erroneous, for the
one—House veto does not alter the existing law in
any fashion, but only preserves the legal status
quo. Plaintiff's error is traceable back to the
faulty assumption that the President's

recommendations themselves are automatically the
law, which the single House's action of veto then
changes. But, at the most, the Act accords the
President's recommendations only the potentiality
of becoming law—if neither House objects within
30 days of their announcement—and does not give
them the force and effect of law ab initio.

It is important to note that the one-House veto
is not, in the context of the present case, a
device employed or available for the

circumvention of the Constitution's scheme for
the enactment of statutes. Further, it neither
expands nor contracts the powers of either House
of Congress severally. When a single House
negatives the President's recommendations, as the

Senate did by S. Res. 293, precisely the same

result is reached as if one House voted down a
proposal for new legislation: there is no change
in the law."

Atkins, supra, 556 F.2d at 1062 and 1063 (emphasis
supplied). See also, Cooper & Cooper, The Legislative Veto

and the Constitution, 30 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 417, 477

(1962).23 Contra, Watson, Congress Steps Out: A Look At

Congressional Control of the Executive, 63 Calif. L. Rev.

983 (1975).