Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...says shrewd Barber Conable, an upstate New York Congressman: "He is a good politician. The realities of power are still against him, but he has immense personal good will up here. He knows the House." When Ford was given a list of wavering members on the strip-mining-veto vote, he glanced over the dozen names. "That one, that one and that one are a waste of time," he said almost instinctively. The three were scratched, and Ford began phoning the others in his successful effort to avoid an override...
...carrying 55 Republicans with them while losing only 25 Democratic defectors. The Senate approved it, then the House last month sent a final version to the President. The vote was 293 to 109-well over the two-thirds majority needed to overcome Ford's veto...
Last week the jobs bill was back in the House for a vote to override the veto-the most important test of strength yet between Ford and the congressional Democrats. "If we Democrats can't win on this crucial vote," House Majority Leader Thomas ("Tip") O'Neill told his party caucus, "then we can't win on any vote." To Ford, the issue was whether the Democrats would open an inflationary floodgate: more and more spending for more and more jobs...
Tough Vote. When Ford set off to West Point, he took three House Republicans along with him on Air Force One. He invited them to his forward cabin and, as New York's Hamilton Fish said later, "He told us how strongly he felt about the veto." After the lecture, Fish reversed his stand against the veto, and New York's Benjamin Oilman agreed to side with Ford should his vote be needed. On the trip back from West Point, Ford went to work on Air Force One's telephone, going down the list of his opponents...
...House debate on the veto was already under way, but Ford kept up his barrage of phone calls. His intensity, the fact that he felt strongly enough to call member after member, had a powerful effect. Just as the House vote was about to begin, Ford reached Maine's William Cohen, a moderate Republican whose recession-stricken state badly needs new jobs. "Bill," Ford said, "this is going to be a tough vote. Can you possibly see your way to help out?" "It's a tough vote for me," Cohen responded. "I'll think about what...