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Presidents vs. Congress and the Constitutional Court: An Empirical Analysis of the Veto Power in Colombia, 1998-

20121

Mónica Pachón Department of Political Science, Universidad de los Andes

Maria Paula Aroca

M.A. Student, Department of Political Science, Universidad de los Andes Paper prepared to be delivered at Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Chicago,

April 10-13th, 2013.

First Draft, Please do not cite.

Abstract

As in other Latin American presidential regimes, Colombian legislators hold ample

power to amend bills and due to the simple majority requirement for overrides, could

potentially be successful in having their preferences translated into legislation. This

institutional design is intended to promote compromise among branches, giving

Congress more power than usually assumed when analyzing the veto power of Latin

American presidents. Nonetheless, and to our knowledge, previous empirical and

theoretical analyses do not consider the inclusion of yet another player: The

Constitutional Court. In the case of Colombia, its role is fundamental as it becomes the

last player after the president vetoes a bill claiming it is unconstitutional. With an

originally constructed dataset of all bills debated and passed by the Colombian

Congress covering the last four presidential periods, the objective of this paper is to

analyze the political circumstances in which presidents are more likely to veto a bill,

what are the characteristics of bills that are vetoed (i.e., policy benefits) and finally, how

legislators and the President adapt to the Court’s rulings related to presidential vetoes.

To accomplish this, we coded all vetoed bills by article, showing 1) that the policy

benefits are a determining factor both for the President to veto and for Congress to

override, 2) that the arguments used to veto the same type of legislation (or parts of it)

change as the Court reconsiders what is and is not constitutional.

1 The authors would like to acknowledge the help of Santiago Mateo Villamizar and Daniel González.

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Introduction

The presidential veto has been extensively studied in recent years (Cameron and

McCarty, 2004). These studies have greatly contributed to our understanding of the

logic of veto usage by the President. Although considerable research has been devoted

to the U.S. case, where bargaining episodes take place between Congress and the

President, less attention has been paid to cases in which a judicial body must determine

if the veto is admitted. In the latter, if the President vetoes claiming that the bill violates

the Constitution, a court has the final say on whether that veto is accepted. This

procedure is common in Latin America. It would seem, therefore, that to analyze veto

power in such cases a deeper understanding of the effects of constitutional review on

veto usage is needed.

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the debate on veto power in

presidential regimes in which there is constitutional revision on vetoes. The present

work reports, for the first time, how veto use is altered by the addition of another veto

gate: the Judiciary. We argue that the involvement of the Court in the veto process

changes the strategies available to presidents when vetoing. In contexts in which the

Congress constantly overrides, the President will issue a type of veto that requires

compulsory Court involvement to increase the odds of successfully restoring the status

quo. On the other hand, the President strategically designs his “veto messages” so that

they can correspond to what the Court considers constitutional at the time. Even though

the content of the vetoed bills is similar and the arguments used by presidents to veto

should thus be the same, overtime the president will modify his veto messages to more

closely resemble the Court’s position and guarantee the blockage of unwanted

legislation.

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In order to evaluate these hypotheses the present paper focuses on the

Colombian case. The Colombian Constitutional Court must evaluate the president’s

arguments for vetoing whenever a bill is vetoed due to unconstitutionality and the veto

is overridden by Congress. Furthermore, the low override threshold provides an

opportunity to examine the president’s behavior when the use of his veto is likely to be

unsuccessful.

To determine the frequency of veto usage by the Colombian president, and to

investigate when he is more likely to use his veto, we constructed an original dataset

with all bills approved by Congress between 1998 and 2012.

To investigate how the president’s strategy changes in response to Congress and

the Court’s decision regarding the veto, we created a dataset containing a sample of 100

bills that were vetoed between 1998 and 2012, from a total of 272 vetoed bills during

that period of time. As most presidential vetoes in Colombia are partial vetoes, the unit

of observation was not a bill, but articles within a bill. By examining the messages

issued by the President when explaining his decision to veto, we were able to determine

which articles were being vetoed, and whether the article was considered

unconstitutional or inconvenient by the President. We also coded the specific arguments

through which presidents justify their veto into separate categories and assigned a

category to every vetoed article. Based on information from congressional records and

Court rulings, we were able to identify if Congress and the Court approved or rejected

each vetoed article.

Our results provide interesting evidence of the effect of institutional design on

veto usage. Consistent with previous theoretical findings (Schwartz 1999; Alemán and

Schwartz 2006), we show supporting empirical evidence indicating that when only an

absolute majority is required for overriding the Executive’s veto in an environment of

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low partisan powers, the most likely outcome is that the veto will be overridden.

Specifically, we observe that the president gets rolled most frequently within the realm

of particularistic and social spending bills. In these policy areas, although there is

significant effort on behalf of the Executive Branch to stop bills from getting enacted,

legislators from outside and within the coalition systematically ignore the message the

President sends with his veto. We also find evidence that indicates that Court

involvement opens an opportunity for presidents to “diversify” their veto strategy in

order to maximize their position vis-à-vis Congress.

The present paper is divided in six parts, including this introduction. The second

part provides a brief summary of veto power in various countries in Latin America,

giving a broader perspective of how the Colombian presidency fares in the region by

comparing the rules of override and the rules governing Courts’ ability to decide on

bills that have been vetoed. The third part of the paper describes in more detail the

stages that vetoed bills go through and the possible avenues that the executives have for

maximizing their preferred outcome. The following section develops some hypotheses

and the methodology, and the sixth part summarizes the results. Finally, the paper

concludes.

Veto Power in Latin America: An Overview

As has been previously reviewed, the power to veto legislation is shared by most

Latin American Executives (Alemán and Schwartz 2006; Mainwaring and Shugart

1997; Shugart and Carey 1998). Nonetheless and as shown in Table 1, veto provisions

vary across cases in three main rules: the override rule, the type of constructive veto and

the Court’s involvement whenever a bill is declared unconstitutional.

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Table 1: Veto Provisions in Latin America

Regarding the majority needed for the override, all constitutions establish at

least the existence of an absolute majority, which is the case for Colombia, Nicaragua,

El Salvador, Peru and Paraguay. Other cases establish a majority of 2/3 or 3/5 of

members of Congress. In some cases such as Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras and Uruguay,

the quorum required to decide on veto overrides is not different from the simple

majority of the members of the House. In the case of bicameral legislatures, the

majority can be formed in a joint session, or a separate vote for the lower and upper

Chamber (Alemán & Schwartz, 2006).

Country Override Rule Veto type Constructive Veto

Ex ante Court Involvement Veto grounds.

Argentina 2/3 of members from concurrent houses

Partial Deletional None Not specified

Bolivia 2/3 of votes from joint session

Partial Amendatory None Not specified

Brazil >1/2 of members from joint session

Partial Deletional The Supremo Tribunal Federal reviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality

A bill can be deemed unconstituional or inconvenient.

Chile 2/3 of members from concurrent houses

Partial Amendatory None Only specifies that veto must be related to bill's content.

Colombia >1/2 of members from concurrent houses

Partial Deletional The Corte Constitucional reviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.

A bill can be deemed unconstitutional or inconvenient.

Costa Rica 2/3 of members from unicameral Congress

Partial Amendatory None A bill can be deemed inconvenient or in need of reform.

Dominican Republic

2/3 of members from concurrent houses

Partial None None Not specified

Ecuador 2/3 of members from unicameral Congress

Partial Amendatory The Tribunal Constitucional reviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.

A bill can be deemed unconstitutional and vetoes can also be grounded on other unspecified reasons.

El Salvador >1/2 of members from unicameral Congress

Partial Amendatory The Suprema Corte de Justicia reviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.


Guatemala 2/3 of members from unicameral Congress

block None The Corte de Constitucionalidad reviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.


Honduras 2/3 of votes from unicameral Congress

Partial None The Corte Suprema de Justiciareviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality

A bill can be deemed unconstitutional or inconvenient.

Mexico 2/3 of votes from concurrent houses


Nicaragua >1/2 of members from unicameral Congress


Panama � 2/3 of members from unicameral Congress

Partial Deletional The Corte Suprema de Justiciareviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.


Paraguay >1/2 of members from concurrent houses

Partial Deletional None Not specified

Peru >1/2 of members from unicameral Congress


Uruguay � 3/5 of votes from concurrent houses meeting jointly


Venezuela >1/2 of votes from unicameral Congress

Partial Amendatory The Tribunal Supremo de Justiciareviews bills that are vetoed on unconstitutionality grounds.


Veto provisions in Latin America

Sources: Alemán, E. & T.Schwartz. 2006. “Presidential Vetoes in Latin American Constitutions”, in Journal of Theoretical Politics, 18 (1), 98-120, and the Political Database of the Americas.

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Vetoes can be of two types: block vetoes when the Executive rejects an entire

bill, and partial vetoes when it opposes sections, articles or items within the bill. In the

cases considered, Guatemala is the only country where partial vetoes are prohibited by

the Constitution (like in the U.S). In every other case, presidents have the right to

exercise a partial veto. Argentina and Brazil even permit the enactment of legislation

that has been partially vetoed, so long as the remaining articles can constitute a coherent

bill without the objected clauses (Alcántara & Sánchez López, 2001). Furthermore, as

noted by Alemán and Schwartz (2006), vetoes can be absolute or constructive.

Constructive vetoes, rather than fully rejecting the passage of a bill, allow the President

to propose an amended version of that bill to the Assembly. They are either deletional,

when the President can remove the parts of the bill that he objects, or amendatory, when

he can modify the undesirable sections. Amendatory vetoes are permitted in Bolivia,

Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and

Venezuela, while deletional ones are allowed in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama

and Paraguay. In Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Honduras the Executive can only

use absolute vetoes (Alemán & Schwartz, 2006).

Finally, we turn to the existence of constitutional review. In most cases,

presidents can veto for reasons of inconvenience, unconstitutionality, or both. Vetoes

for inconvenience and the games derived from these have been analyzed in detail by

Alemán and Schwartz (2006).

After a bill is vetoed on the grounds of unconstitutionality and insisted upon by

Congress —in the cases where this procedure exists— a Court must decide on the

validity of the veto (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,

Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela). In all instances the Court's resolution is binding.

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In Colombia, the Constitutional Court was created by the 1991 Constitution in an

attempt to guard the Constitution against the temptation of the elected branches to

legislate against it or disregard its content during times of peace, but especially at

critical junctures. The Court is composed of 9 judges, who are elected from lists

presented by the Supreme Court, the President, the Consejo de Estado (each of which

can propose up to three candidates) and have eight-year terms. The Colombian

Constitutional Court is particularly involved in the making of legislation as shown in

Table 1. Not only does it revise enacted legislation, exercising a posteriori control, but

it frequently issues a priori reviews, especially when it comes to vetoed bills

(Rodríguez-Raga, 2011).

As in other Latin American legislatures, the Court in Colombia has become a

decisive actor in the legislative process and this can ultimately affect the way executives

and legislators interact. A model that only devices Congress and the president as salient

players, might fail to understand veto dynamics in the complex institutional settings of

Latin American countries.

Executive’s Veto Power in Colombia

The executive holds considerable legislative authority in Colombia. Nonetheless,

compared to other countries in the region, his reactive powers are limited due to the low

override threshold (Alemán and Schwartz 2006) and the prominent role of the Court.2

In what follows, we briefly describe the steps that follow after a bill is vetoed by the

President.

2 After being established in the 1821 Constitution, the figure of presidential objections has gone through significant modifications in 1853, 1863, 1868, 1886. See Zuluaga Gil (2003).

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The 1991 Constitution grants authority to the President to partially or fully veto all

types of bills, except for constitutional amendments.3 For this purpose, the President has

a limit between 6 and 20 days (depending on the number of bill articles), to return it to

the House in which it was first introduced. The report presented to the House must

specify whether there the veto is due to reasons of inconvenience or unconstitutionality.

A veto due to inconvenience should argue why the bill could be politically, financially

or socially disadvantageous (Art. 167, Constitution, Art. 199, Law 5th, 1992).

When the Executive files the veto report, the Mesa Directiva is required to

choose an ad hoc committee. After some deliberation, the committee should

recommend to the House and Senate Floors whether the veto should be accepted or

denied. If there is a recommendation for accepting the veto, the committee can either

propose to the Floor a new version of the bill that excludes the vetoed section, or

definitely kill the bill by having a Floor vote ratifying the Committee’s

recommendation.

If the committee considers the bill should be enacted, the House and Senate must

vote. A majority plus one of all members in each House is required to override the

Executive’s veto. If the bill is vetoed due to inconvenience and Congress overrides the

veto, the president must enact it. Otherwise, the bill is sent to the Constitutional Court,

which in turn has a period of two months to make a decision over its constitutionality.

The Court can deem the bill constitutional, in which case the bill has to be

enacted. However, if the Court determines that only some parts of the bill are

unconstitutional, or the unconstitutionality is due to deficiencies in the legislative

process, it can be sent back to the House in which it was first introduced so that

3 The president vetoed a constitutional reform for the first time, without any precedent, in June 2012. See for reference: http://www.lasillavacia.com/elblogueo/dejusticia/34313/la-objecion-presidencial-la-reforma-la-justicia

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Congress can amend its flaws. Congress has up to 30 days to return the bill to the Court

for a final decision.

What do Presidents Want? Sequence of the Veto Game

As correctly stated by Alemán and Schwartz (2006), veto power, under certain

circumstances, cannot be understood as an asset, as has been traditionally assumed in

the literature: “every version of the presidential veto found in Latin America can be

positively disadvantageous to the President and his electoral constituency. Sometimes

the disadvantage is as widespread as possible: the outcome is Pareto inefficient. Such

anomalies can occur in rather common circumstances.”(p.99) In what follows, we

intend to describe the veto game form, extending the argument proposed by Alemán and

Schwartz (2006), to situations in which a Constitutional Court comes into play, adding

yet another decision to the President: whether to veto over reasons of unconstitutionality

(in which case he will introduce the Court into the game), or veto alleging reasons of

inconvenience.

We assume that any elected president would like to control the changes other

players propose to the status quo. In a regime of separation of powers, the Executive

has different ways of achieving this goal. The president can use his proactive power to

propose changes to the status quo, use his unilateral power when possible, as well as his

reactive power to control unwanted changes from being enacted. His constitutional and

partisan powers, as well as the legislative organization, will determine his capacity to

efficiently control the agenda, and to avoid getting rolled in the plenary floor (Cox and

McCubbins, 1993, Cox 2006).

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Whenever the President holds an ample and disciplined majority, one should not

expect a great number of vetoes, as the President has enough information to prevent

unwanted bills from ever getting debated. Nonetheless, when his partisan powers are

low or there is divided government, the president might encounter more frequently

situations in which his capacity to preempt undesired bills from reaching the floor is

limited.

In these cases, the President could use his veto power, and expect that the

majority threshold required for the veto override should be enough to preempt the

change in status quo. In some cases, this is a reasonable assumption due to a very high

threshold in the majority override, as seen in Table 1. Nonetheless, as shown by

Schwartz (1999) and Alemán and Schwartz (2006), in cases where the majority

established is only the absolute majority of members of Congress, the threshold may not

be enough to prevent Congress from overriding.

In such cases and others where presidents can expect a high probability of failure

– in contexts where there exists the possibility of constitutional review– the President

may opt to declare the article unconstitutional to have an additional venue to improve

his chances of success. To keep things simple, and because most presidents in Latin

America have constructive veto, we will assume the president is not making a decision

over using absolute or constructive veto, as this would become a dominated strategy.

Consequently, there are two possible outcomes whenever veto power is

exercised. We assume the preferred outcome of the president is SQ, i.e., when the

president can successfully impose his policy preference by using his constructive veto.

The President’s least preferred outcome would be the enactment of L, or the legislative

proposal.

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Thus, the expected utility of the president can be described as follows:

𝐸 𝑈! = 𝛾 𝜋! − 𝐶! + 𝐶!! + 1− 𝛾 𝜋!" − 𝐶! + 𝐶!! 1

where γγ represents the probability of the enactment of L, 1-‐γ1-‐γ represents the

probability of maintaining SQ, π! π! is the benefit of the president when L is enacted

and π!"π!" is the benefit of the president when SQ is the outcome. Finally, C!C! and

C!!C!! represent the costs of passing through the Congress and the Constitutional Court,

respectively.

When the bill is declared inconvenient, the expected utility simplifies as follows,

as the Court does not enter the game:

𝐸(𝑈! ) = 𝜙[𝜋! − 𝐶!] + (1− 𝜙)[𝜋!" − 𝐶!] (2)

Where ϕϕ represents the probability of the enactment of L, 1-‐ϕ1-‐ϕ represents

the probability of maintaining SQ, while benefits and costs are represented in (2) in the

same way as was explained in (1).

To better explain the choices and strategies of each branch, a game tree

describes the sequence of play (Figure 2). N represents the nature, C (Congress),

represents the congressional median voter, the executive whom we denote as P

(President), and the Constitutional Court whom we denote as CC.

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Figure 1: Sequence of Veto Game

Source: Elaborated by Authors

The sequence of play is as follows:

1. N plays two times at the same time. First, it decides with probability ρρ the existence

of an amicable Congress and with probability 1-‐ρ1-‐ρ the existence of a de-aligned

Congress. Second, it decides with probability ββ the existence of a friendly court and

with probability 1-‐β1-‐β the existence of a hostile court.

2. Being aware of the moves of N, C passes a bill (L) to modify the status quo or

reversion policy (SQ).

3. P, also being aware of the moves of N, can accept the change in the status quo,

resulting in a final policy outcome of L and ending the game. He can reject the offer, in

which case he vetoes (V) C's proposal.

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4. If P vetoes, he can decide whether to veto declaring the article of a bill

unconstitutional (u) or veto declaring the article inconvenient (i) or both (ui).

5. If declared inconvenient, P has explicitly challenged Congress (C). C in turn can

override (o) or accept (ā) P’s veto. If C overrides P and changes the status quo, then P

pays the highest cost (L becomes the new policy). C also pays a cost (the requirement of

a new majority to support the bill). In case of a veto due to inconvenience (i) if no

majority overrides the veto, then SQ prevails.

6. If P declares the bill unconstitutional, C can decide whether to override or accept P’s

veto. If C does not override, then SQ prevails. If C overrides P’s decision to veto, then

the bill goes for revision to CC.

7. CC will decide on the validity of full constitutionality based vetoes (u). It can

discredit P's arguments for vetoing and as a consequence, L will go into effect. It can

also agree with P's reasons for vetoing and declare the bill completely void

reestablishing SQ. Finally, CC can abstain, refusing to make a decision over the validity

of the veto.4

8. If P vetoes a bill declaring it both unconstitutional and inconvenient C can agree to

P's veto (ui) and SQ holds. If C overrides, the bill will inevitably go to CC, even if the

4 This usually happens when congressional records are incomplete, or when CC does not feel it has the sufficient legal authority to make pronouncements over that specific veto (as is the case when the arguments for vetoing go beyond constitutional issues). In either case, the status of the bill remains pending until something breaks the stalemate (such as the delivery of all congressional records regarding that bill, the return of the bill to C, etc.).

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part deemed inconvenient is accepted. Once there, it will go through the process

described in (7).

Hypotheses

The executive’s decision to veto is dependent on its beliefs regarding the type of

Congress and Court. If its expected utility from vetoing the bill is negative, we should

expect not to observe any vetoes.

The circumstances which would make a difference for choosing which type of Congress

the Executive may be facing would be, among others, a situation of divided

government (Cox and Kernell 1991), high separation of purpose among branches

(Haggard & McCubbins 2001), or specific fights on legislative jurisdiction (Alston and

Mueller 2005). Furthermore, the President might consider who the author is, in order to

evaluate whether vetoing the bill might be more or less costly for his own coalition, the

type of bill under scrutiny, as well as the timing in which the bill is being considered.

H1. Presidents tend to use vetoes more frequently when they are politically weaker

(Rohde y Simon 1985, Cameron 2000).

H2. Presidents tend to use vetoes more frequently to stop bills proposed by members

outside his governing coalition than by those within his coalition.

H3. Presidents tend to use more vetoes over bills that allocate resources for specific

constituencies, following the principle of budget efficiency (Carey and Shugart 1992).5

5 Following the principle of the efficiency of the budget, and attempting to create an additional legal hurdle for local and regional bills to be introduced and enacted, in 2003, the Government enacted the Law 819, establishing a new legal framework for Budgetary Matters, Responsibility and Fiscal Transparency. The law established that for bills to be considered in Congress, the Finance Ministry must have an estimated cost of what the bill would imply. The article reads, “Artículo 7º. Análisis del impacto fiscal de las normas. En todo momento, el impacto fiscal de cualquier proyecto de ley, ordenanza o acuerdo, que

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If the president believes he is aligned with Congress – despite a coordination failure

among an otherwise friendly coalition– and he believes that the passed bill can be

stopped without involving the Court (ρ >1-‐ρ), the president will simply declare the bill

inconvenient and hope for SQ to prevail.6 However, if the president believes ρ <1-‐ρ, he

might be tempted to involve the Court as a way to increase his odds at making his

arguments heard, thus giving a greater chance to SQ.

H4. The president will only choose to veto for unconstitutionality if the expected utility

of doing so (considering the costs of going through the Congress and the Court) is

positive. In other words, the President will choose this path whenever he weighs that the

probability of the Court deciding in favor of his veto is larger than the probability of

Congress deciding for SQ. To calculate these probabilities, the Executive may use the

accumulated information of the Court’s decisions on past vetoes, and update it to see

whether the Court has changed its interpretation.

Methodology

ordene gasto o que otorgue beneficios tributarios, deberá hacerse explícito y deberá ser compatible con el Marco Fiscal de Mediano Plazo. Para estos propósitos, deberá incluirse expresamente en la exposición de motivos y en las ponencias de trámite respectivas los costos fiscales de la iniciativa y la fuente de ingreso adicional generada para el financiamiento de dicho costo. El Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público, en cualquier tiempo durante el respectivo trámite en el Congreso de la República, deberá rendir su concepto frente a la consistencia de lo dispuesto en el inciso anterior. En ningún caso este concepto podrá ir en contravía del Marco Fiscal de Mediano Plazo. Este informe será publicado en la Gaceta del Congreso. Los proyectos de ley de iniciativa gubernamental, que planteen un gasto adicional o una reducción de ingresos, deberá contener la correspondiente fuente sustitutiva por disminución de gasto o aumentos de ingresos, lo cual deberá ser analizado y aprobado por el Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público. En las entidades territoriales, el trámite previsto en el inciso anterior será surtido ante la respectiva Secretaría de Hacienda o quien haga sus veces.” LEY 819 DE 2003 (Julio 9), “Por la cual se dictan normas orgánicas en materia de presupuesto, responsabilidad y transparencia fiscal y se dictan otras disposiciones.” 6 One could imagine “friendly mistakes” may happen whenever the oversight has been defective, or there has been a numerous agenda in which the bill got through without much attention from the public eye and party leaders.

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To analyze the circumstances in which presidents are more likely to veto a bill,

we constructed a dataset that includes every bill introduced in the Colombian Congress

from 1998 to 2012. Most of the information was obtained from Congreso Visible’s

database, and complemented with data from Secretaria del Senado’s webpage. A total

of 6,758 bills were examined. We documented which of these bills had been vetoed in

order to construct our dependent variables. We classified each bill according to its

scope, initiative, main subject, Chamber of introduction, committee of introduction, and

whether its authors belonged to the President's coalition. We also included a variable

describing the legislative period in which the bill was introduced, as a proxy for the

timing of the last legislative process completed. We estimated the effects of these

variables on the probability to veto using a logistic regression model.

To investigate how the president and Congress adapt to Court rulings, we created an

original dataset containing a sample of 86 bills that were vetoed between the years 1998

and 2012, from a total of 272. As most Executive vetoes in Colombia are partial vetoes,

the unit of observation is not a bill, but articles within a bill. Using the reports issued by

the President when explaining his decision to veto, we were able to determine which

articles were being vetoed, and whether the article was considered unconstitutional or

inconvenient. We coded the reasons for objecting into separate categories and assigned

a category to every vetoed item. Also, by comparing articles instead of bills, we are able

to compare subunits of the bill, and add up “apples with apples”, which increases the

validity of the results and inferences done with the data.

Further, with information from congressional records and Court reviews, we were able

to identify how Congress and the Court reacted to each veto. We determined whether

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Congress and the Court accepted or rejected the president's objection for every vetoed

article.

Results

How Frequent Are Presidential Vetoes in Colombia?

A total of 6,756 bills were introduced in Congress during the period 1998-2012,

from which only 1,281 were approved by the House and Senate. Of all bills introduced,

the executive vetoed 272(4.03%) of them. Table 2 shows the total number of vetoes per

presidential period, distinguishing between vetoes to bills approved in their own period

and vetoes to bills introduced in the previous presidential period. As can be observed,

25% of all vetoes are done to bills which were introduced in the previous period, and

usually occur in the beginning of the term. Although their number is considerable,

especially for the cases of Pastrana and Uribe I, most vetoes in the sample are of bills

which were introduced during their presidential term.

Table 2: Total Vetoes by Presidential Term, 1998 -‐ 2012

As can be observed in Table 3, most vetoed bills are of legislative origin: 90,07% of

bills compared to 7,35% of executive origin. This should be expected to a certain

extent, especially due to a highly decentralized legislative organization in which

Number % Number % Number %Pastrana 23 33,82 73 35,78 96 35,29Uribe 37 54,41 37 18,14 74 27,21Uribe* 0 0 75 36,76 75 27,57Santos 8 11,76 19 9,31 27 9,93Total 68 100 204 100 272 100Source: Elaborated by authors, from data from Congreso Visible (www.congresovisible.org), www.secretariasenado.gov.co.

Period

Vetoed bills introduced previous term

Vetoed bills within term Total vetoes

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controlling private bills from legislators is rather difficult compared to other presidential

systems (Carroll and Pachón, 2013). Nonetheless, the absolute numbers are rather high

and surprising, especially when observing that Colombian presidents ended up vetoing

their own legislation sixteen times, as a result of the same phenomena and the lack of

control over the legislative procedure which leads to a high amendment rate. Examples

of these bills include the First National Development Plan from President Alvaro Uribe,

a bill regulating the wages and social security from the Departmental Assemblies, the

Mining Code, among others.

Table 3: Vetoed Bills by Initiative, 1998 -‐ 2012

With regards to the scope, the greater percentage of bills vetoed in every presidential

term are local bills (commemorations) (See Annex 1). Those usually entail

expenditures as their purpose is to distribute particularistic policy benefits to

municipalities.

Bills related to social security are also more likely to receive a veto, in comparison with

bills dealing with other policy areas. Regulating the professional activities is also

another common bill which gets vetoed. These bills usually entail the creation of a

professional association, as well as privileges for their members in contracts with the

public sector.

Num % Num % Num %Legislative 64 94,12 181 88,73 245 90,07Executive 4 5,88 16 7,84 20 7,35Other* 0 0 4 1,96 4 1,47Hybrid** 0 0 3 1,47 3 1,1Total 68 100 204 100 272 100Source: Authors. (*) Bill has authors that do not belong to the executive or legislative branch. (**) Bill has authors that belong to both the executive and legislative branch.

TotalInitiativeVetoed bills introduced previous

termOwn term vetoes

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What Makes Bills More Prone To Get Vetoed?

Table 4 shows the results for the logit model with robust standard errors, with

the normal and corrected estimation (King, Tomz and Wittenberg 2001), as well as the

marginal effects. To test for the hypotheses proposed and quantify the magnitude in

which each characteristic of the bill influences the probability of the bill getting vetoed,

the model included dummy variables identifying the bill’s scope following Taylor

Robinson and Diaz (1999), local-regional (leaving out “national”), a dummy for each

presidential period, where Pastrana, Uribe I and II are included, excluding Santos.

Pastrana represents the minority government in the sample. To control for the electoral

cycle, three variables identified the legislative years when the bill was introduced, the

first, second and third legislature, excluding the last year of the presidential period.

Finally, the dummy coalition identifies whether the author of the bill is a member of the

governing coalition or not. We also differentiated between vetoes issued over bills

introduced during their own executive term from vetoes exercised on bills which were

introduced in the previous presidential term to observe if there was a differentiated

intention between the two types: the second one having more an intention of “cleaning”

the legislative output from previous government influence. In the first set of results, we

include all the dataset with all bills introduced in the legislature, and in the second, we

limit the sample to all bills that went through the legislative process.

20

Table 4: Logit Model with Veto as Dependent Variable, Marginal Effects

The model with all bills introduced shows support for the first hypothesis. Pastrana,

who is the minority president in the sample, vetoes more frequently than the others. The

marginal effect of Pastrana is 0,07 compared to the excluded president, Juan Manuel

Santos, while Uribe I and Uribe II only have a marginal effect of 0,02 and 0,03

respectively. Although we find that the minority president in the sample vetoes more

frequently, the data does not provide evidence for the use of veto in bills authored by

members of the governing coalition (H2). As for the scope of bills, local and regional

bills are significantly more likely to be vetoed, compared to the excluded category of

national bills. This is true for general vetoes, and vetoes done to bills introduced in

their own term. Nonetheless, the effect is larger when all vetoes are being considered.

As was observed, the amount of bills vetoed was on average 2% a year of the bills

introduced. Of course, when observing the total of bills passed the percentage is much

greater and suggests that the use of veto is not exceptional; its use is rather frequent.

Logit Relogit M.E.Own term

vetoes M.E.General Vetoes M.E.

Local and regional bills 1.178 1.178 0,05 1.044 0,03 1.770 0,01[8,80]** [8,80]** [6,72] [6,97]** [5,31] [5,61]** [2,69]

Period of Pastrana 1.578 1.556 0,07 1.321 0,04 2.442 0,01[6,38]** [6,31]** [4,42] [5,10]** [3,6] [2,22]* [1,33]

Period of Uribe I 0,662 0,647 0,02 0,858 0,02[2,44]* [2,39]* [2,12] [3,16]** [2,51]

Period of Uribe II 0,909 0,891 0,03 1.024 0,02 0,334 0,00[3,46]** [3,40]** [2,92] [3,84]** [3,12] [0,29] [0,29]

1st legislature 0,95 0,941 0,03 2.502 0,10 -2.480 0,00[4,78]** [4,74]** [3,78] [6,66]** [4,28] [3,92]** [-2,68]

2nd legislature 0,566 0,559 0,02 2.141 0,08 -3.036 0,00[2,71]** [2,68]** [2,37] [5,63]** [3,85] [4,07]** [-3,1]

3rd legislature -0,209 -0,208 -0,01 1.042 0,03 -1.283 0,00[0,89] [0,88] [-0,93] [2,55]* [2,11] [3,22]** [-2,27]

Author belongs to the Executive coalition 0,067 0,066 0,00 0,036 0,00 0,205 0,00[0,51] [0,50] [0,51] [0,25] [0,25] [0,66] [0,66]

Omitted variable: Uribe I 0[,]

Constant -5.031 -4.991 0,027 -6.529 0,019 -5.853 0,002[16,51]** [16,39]** [14,73]** [4,99]**

Observations 6642 6642 6642 4798Robust z statistics in parentheses, M.E. are the marginal effects* significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%

21

Table 5 shows the same model, limiting the sample to the bills that made it through the

legislative process, and were later enacted or vetoed. Results from the two models are

consistent, showing that Pastrana, the minority president in the sample, tends to veto

more than the others. The marginal effect is of 0,25 compared to Uribe I and Uribe II

with 0,10 and 0,172 respectively. The marginal effect for local and regional bills

increased substantially, suggesting that almost 1 in 5 local or regional bills got vetoed.

This is especially true for vetoes to bills introduced within the president’s term.7 Also,

bills introduced earlier in the presidential term are systematically more likely to be

vetoed once passed, than bills in the last year of the presidency. Finally, the variable

“coalition”, which identifies bills from inside the governing coalition (including

executive bills), becomes significant, with a significant marginal effect of -0,10 for all

vetoes and -0,08 for own term vetoes, suggesting that the likelihood of vetoing a bill

from within the coalition is significantly less once it has gone through all the legislative

process.

7 This result finds opposite evidence from theoretical models which suggest that in incomplete information settings, the president will more likely rolled in national relevant bills. In our dataset this occurs exceptionally. Instead, the bills which get more vetoed are less controversial, and have as main purpose to give a subsidy or a rent to a particular sector or constituency (Cameron and McCarty, 2004, 424).

22

Table 5: Probability of a bill getting vetoed, only bills that passed 1998 -‐ 2012

Veto Overrides: ¿What is the Better Strategy to Deal with Congress?

As could be observed in the previous section, Colombian presidents use vetoes

rather frequently. Nonetheless, as we will show, their use does not warrant its success.

There are numerous examples where, despite the executive’s active opposition to the

content of bills, bills get their way through without much possibility for the president to

stop the change to the status quo. Here are some representative examples.

During President Uribe's second term, a bill that aimed at providing more affordable

and better treatment to cancer patients was introduced by Representative Sandra

Ceballos, a cancer sufferer herself. Among other things, the bill demanded that

government became responsible for the provision of all services needed to prevent,

diagnose and treat the disease, and should include it as a key issue in national and

All vetoes M.E.Own term

vetoes M.E.General vetoes M.E.

Local and regional bills 1.036 0,179 0.766 0,103 2,08 0,037[6.09]** [5,57]** [4.16]** [3,78]** [4.90]** [2,96]**

Period of Pastrana 1.441 0,251 1,12 0,154 1,66 0,019[4.70]** [4,33]** [3.63]** [3,24]** [1.68] [1,15]

Period of Uribe I 0.613 0,100 0.890 0,122[1.91] [1,77] [2.82]** [2,46]**

Period of Uribe II 1,008 0,172 1,02 0,141 0,06 0,001[3.25]** [2,97]** [3.29]** [2,90]** [0.06] [0,06]

1st legislature 0.636 0,101 2,32 0,358 -3,39 -0,030[2.77]** [2,62]** [5.79]** [5,46]** [4.57]** [-2,66]**

2nd legislature 0.180 0,028 1,92 0,300 -4,07 -0,031[0.77] [0,75] [4.83]** [4,33]** [4.94]** [-3,49]**

3rd legislature -0.379 -0,053 1,02 0,148 -1,73 -0,010[1.45] [-1,57] [2.36]* [2,05]* [3.83]** [-2,60]

Author belongs to the Executive coalition -0.648 -0,105 -0.658 -0,086 -0,56 -0,006[4.03]** [-3,74]** [3.79]** [-3,47]** [1.48] [-1,27]

Omitted variable: Uribe I 0.000[.]

Constant -2,397 0,18 -4,005 0,13 -2,749 0,01[6.27]** [7.91]** [2.53]*

Observations 1183 1183 862Robust z statistics in parentheses, marginal effects is for discrete change of dummy variable from 0 to 1* significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%

23

regional development plans (Gaceta 401/07). Despite the wide support shown by cancer

patient organizations, several health care providers, and even members of his party in

Congress8, President Uribe vetoed the bill claiming legislators didn't specify how it

would be financed. He also argued that resources needed to implement what was

proposed surpassed government's spending capacity. The President stated that for these

reasons the bill was in clear violation of constitutional principles (Gaceta 02/09).9

Another bill with the purpose of reducing the mortality rate of children with cancer,

experienced a similar fate. Both bills were vetoed for the same reasons: Congress did

not have the authority to introduce expenses, and they were fiscally unsustainable

(Gaceta 871/08). In both cases, the veto was overridden (Gaceta 265/09) and the Court

denied its validity, ordering both bills to be enacted (C-850/09).

Table 6: Bills passed and Vetoed by Presidency, differentiated in National and Local and Regional Bills

As seen in Table 6, on average, 17% of national bills and 37% of local bills approved by

Congress get vetoed every presidential term. Thus, it becomes very important to

understand what the options for legislators and the Executive are to get their preferred

policy outcome.

8 "Controversia nacional por la objeción del Gobierno a la Ley Sandra Ceballos". Cambio.com.co Enero 21 de 2009 http://www.cambio.com.co/archivo/documento/CMS-4767108 9 "Se enciende debate por objeción del gobierno a la ley Sandra Ceballos". www.wradio.com. Enero 15 de 2009 http://www.wradio.com.mx/noticia/se-enciende-debate-por-objecion-del-gobierno-a-la-ley-sandra-ceballos/20090115/nota/747050.aspx

Passed Vetoed % Passed Vetoed %Pastrana (1998-02) 277 56 20,22 95 40 42,11Uribe (2002-06) 230 36 15,65 91 38 41,76Uribe (2006-10) 261 49 18,77 73 26 35,62Santos (2010-12) 107 15 14,02 50 12 24,00Total 875 156 17,83 309 116 37,54

www.secretariasenado.gov.co. Source: Elaborated by authors, from data from Congreso Visible (www.congresovisible.org) and

National Bills Local Bills

24

As has been mentioned throughout the paper, the Colombian executive can veto

claiming the bill is unconstitutional, inconvenient or both. To analyze the reasons for

vetoing, and to test which were the most successful strategies for the Executive to get

his way, we constructed a dataset in which, instead of using the bill as the unit of

analysis, we divided each bill by article and coded in each the reasons put forth by the

president to explain his veto. Since most vetoes are partial, we considered this to be the

best way to capture his strategy and the outcome, as the Court also makes decisions on

each article, whenever the veto is partial.

Table 7: Arguments used for Vetoing, Sample 1998 -‐ 2012

Table 7 provides simple descriptive statistics for the type of veto issued per article by

presidential term. From the aggregate numbers, comparing the presidential periods, it is

Pastrana who vetoed more bills as shown in Table 2, but also who issued more vetoes

claiming unconstitutionality, followed by the second term of President Uribe, which

vetoed much less in absolute terms, but used the unconstitutional option more

frequently in the sample. This could potentially be the result of a change in strategy, due

to lack of good results. Alongside the general grounds for vetoing an article, the

president is required to report the reasons justifying his decision. After carefully

reviewing each decision for the articles in the sample, we were able to group them into

5 distinct categories:

Number % Number % Number % Number %

Pastrana (1998-02) 114 56.72 72 35.82 15 7.46 201 100Uribe (2002-06) 27 40.30 35 52.24 5 7.46 67 100Uribe (2006-10) 49 81.67 8 13.33 3 5.00 60 100Santos (2010-12) 12 40.00 3 10.00 15 50.00 30 100Total 202 56.42 118 32.96 38 10.61 358 100

Total Vetoed ArticlesUnconstitutional Inconvenient BothPeriod

Source: Elaborated by authors, from data from Congreso Visible (www.congresovisible.org) and www.secretariasenado.gov.co.

25

1. Fiscal Constraints: The bill entails expenditures of public funds which the

government cannot finance, or Congress is not allowed to authorize this type of

expenditure without the Executive’s approval.

2. Violates a right: The bills violates a fundamental or social right.

3. Text/Procedure errors: The bill contains textual errors or is ambiguous in its

content. The legislative due process was violated.

4. Disregards existing legislation: Bill is in contempt of decrees, treaties or other

existing laws.

5. Modifies administrative structure: According to the president, Congress

cannot pass legislation that modifies certain aspects of the administrative

structure of the State (For a more detailed description, see Appendix A).

One of the interesting things we found while coding each article of our sample was that

in certain cases, almost identical arguments were used interchangeably between vetoes

due to inconvenience and unconstitutionality. And as we know, using either argument

entails different costs for the Executive: When a bill is declared inconvenient, the

President must undertake the costs of returning the bill to Congress. Otherwise, he must

address the costs of passing through the Congress and the Constitutional Court. As will

be demonstrated, this decision will also have an impact on his probability of blocking a

change in the status quo successfully.

Table 8 presents a simple crosstab showing this phenomenon for all articles in the

sample, covering all presidential periods. Except when the president claims that the bill

is violating a constitutional right, which is of course, unconstitutional, the rest of the

arguments have been done by declaring the bill inconvenient or unconstitutional.

26

Table 8: Arguments for vetoing bills, by type of veto

For example, articles with textual or procedural errors were as likely to be vetoed

claiming unconstitutionality (50.82%) as they were to be declared inconvenient

(44.26%). When arguing on fiscal constraints, the executive usually declared the bill

unconstitutional. Nonetheless, 28 times in the dataset, we find the executive vetoed on

the same topic claiming inconvenience. Disregarding existing legislation is also a

common argument, which is mostly replied with a veto of inconvenience. Nonetheless,

in 17.86% of the times, a joint veto was used. Finally, when the article modified

administrative structure the President vetoed on constitutional, inconvenient, and both

grounds with similar frequencies arguing in all cases that Congress lacked jurisdiction

over the public administrative structure (43.94, 30.3, and 25.76% respectively).

To test the likelihood of a bill getting enacted after they have been vetoed either for

being inconvenient or unconstitutional, we ran a logit model in which the dependent

variable takes a value of 1when the veto is overridden by either Congress or the

Constitutional Court. As independent variables we include dummies identifying the

first two years and the last two years for the presidential periods included in the sample.

Thus, we have a dummy for Pastrana (2000-2002), and four dummies for Uribe’s two

terms in the presidency. The excluded variable is Santos (2010 – 2012). With these

variables, our objective is to test whether there are differences across and within

presidential terms. To observe the differences across the types of vetoes, we included

Number % Number % Number % Number % Number % Number %Unconstitutional 110 75.34 27 93.10 31 50.82 5 8.93 29 43.94 202 56.42Inconvenient 28 19.18 2 6.90 27 44.26 41 73.21 20 30.30 118 32.96Both 8 5.48 0 0.00 3 4.92 10 17.86 17 25.76 38 10.61Total 146 100 29 100 61 100 56 100 66 100 358 100Source: Elaborated by authors, from data from Congreso Visible (www.congresovisible.org), www.secretariasenado.gov.co, and decisions from the Constitutional Court. Articles can be vetoed for up to three reasons. Of all articles in this sample, 81.28% were vetoed for only one reason; 12.85% of them were vetoed for two reasons, and 5.87% for three.

Argument Fiscal Constraints Violates right Textual or Procedural Errors

Disregards Existing Legislation

Modifies Administrative

StructureTotal Vetoed Articles

27

dummies identifying whether an article was vetoed due to unconstitutionality,

inconvenience, leaving out “inconvenience and unconstitutionality”. We also included

variables identifying the arguments expressed by the executive for each article,

excluding the category for “textual and procedural errors”. This way, we can contrast

the significance of arguments and types of veto. In the second model, we include

interactions terms which combine the type of veto and the argument expressed. This

way, we expect to see, on average, whether any of the possible avenues prove more

successful than the other.

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Table 9: Logit Model to Explain the Probability of Enactment, once Vetoed (2000-‐ 2012)

Before discussing the specific results for each variable, it is important to note that the

probability that a vetoed article gets enacted is on average, 0,77. This, we consider, is

high from what one would initially expect from a president who is usually associated

with high constitutional powers. This, we interpret as evidence that the veto power of

1 2Dependent variable: Vetoed and enacted Vetoed and Enacted

Pastrana (2000 - 2002) 1,291 1,235[0.504]* [0.527]*

Uribe I(2002 - 2004) -1,274 -1,08[0.439]** [0.485]*

Uribe II (2004 - 2006) -0.691 -0,964[0.441] [0.525]

Uribe III (2006 - 2008) -0.320 -0.326[0.581] [0.646]

Uribe IV (2008 - 2010) 0.836 0.754[0.617] [0.708]

Unconstitutional 0.297 -2.087[0.510] [1.872]

Inconvenient 1,754 -1.677[0.625]** [1.954]

Fiscal Constraints 2,606 -0.335[0.496]** [1.810]

Violates fundamental right 1,446 1,04[0.418]** [0.416]*

Disregards existing legislation 0.373 -1.580[0.518] [1.433]

Modifies administrative structure 1,969 0.151[0.516]** [1.355]

Unconstitutional*Fiscal Constraints 2.782[1.757]

Inconvenient*Fiscal Constraints 2.938[1.941]

Unconstitutional*Disregards existing legislation 1.351[1.816]

Inconvenient*Disregards existing legislation 2,78[1.558]

Unconstitutional*Modifies administrative structure 0.542[1.476]

Inconvenient*Modifies administrative structure

Constant -1,487 1.325[0.722]* [1.863]

Observations 358 338Robust z-statistics in parentheses* significant at 5% level; ** significant at 1% level

(omitted)

Note: Inconvenient*Modifies administrative structure was omitted because it predicts succes perfectly. 20 observations were dropped.

29

the president is no asset: on average, the president has a higher probability of facing an

override than of protecting the status quo.

First, from all presidential periods included in the model, we can conclude that Pastrana,

who vetoed more, was also the most overridden in the sample compared to the excluded

category, Juan Manuel Santos. By contrast, the first half of Álvaro Uribe’s first

presidential term is significantly lower than the excluded category, suggesting that his

capacity to stop changes in the status quo was greater in comparison. However, the

second part of this first term as well as all his second period, are not significantly

different from that of Santos. This result suggests that when facing Congress and the

Court, in time, Uribe became less successful on average.

Second, when comparing the type of vetoes, the effect of inconvenient is positive and

significant in the first model, and changes sign but is not significant when interaction

terms are included. This suggests that the effect is mostly explained by the interaction

terms, and not by declaring the article inconvenient by itself. There is no significant

difference between of unconstitutionality and inconvenience and unconstitutionality

vetoes.

When observing the arguments given by the President to veto, there are some

differences worth pointing out. The first thing to note is that whenever an article is

vetoed due to fiscal constraints when compared to the category of text and procedural

errors, the probability of it getting enacted into law is significantly higher. In other

words: it would seem that this argument is not frequently accepted as valid by either the

majority in Congress or the Court. The interaction effects for fiscal constraints with the

30

two types of veto are positive, but short on being significantly different from the

omitted category of unconstitutional and inconvenient. The argument, “violates a

fundamental right”, dealing mostly with the Court, and “modifies administrative

structure” also have a higher probability of being enacted despite being vetoed, although

its effect is lower. Finally the argument suggesting that the bill approved “disregards

existing legislation” is not significantly different from the excluded category (textual

and procedural errors). Observing the interaction effects, although they do not

contradict the results of the first model, they do not achieve the usual accepted levels of

significance.

Figure 2: Clarify Simulations for Vetoed Articles that get Enacted

Figure 2 shows the expected probability for vetoed articles getting enacted, using

Clarify (King, Tomz and Wittenberg 2001). The first thing to note is that except for

President Uribe’s two first years in his first term, all presidents face a difficult time

31

when dealing with Congress and the Court.10 As observed in the graph, articles vetoed

for fiscal constraints have the least chance of getting stopped, followed by those that are

vetoed because they disregard the bills of rights. Finally, vetoes due to inconvenience,

have less chances of getting stopped by the president than those vetoed for

unconstitutionality. Evidently, in time, President Uribe is less successful at both

avenues. Figure 3 shows the type of vetoes by year. From the graph, one can observe

that the use of vetoes for inconvenience loose popularity after its peak in 2004, and is

rarely used after then. This is consistent with the fact that president do not expect to be

successful at this strategy. Consequently, most vetoes are due to unconstitutionality,

and some are due to inconvenience and unconstitutionality.

Figure 3: Use of Vetoes by Year

10 Since we do not have information on other presidential periods, we are not sure of whether there is an electoral cycle effect. This would be important to understand whenever more data is available.

010

2030

4050

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

sum of unconstitucional sum of inconvenientsum of inconv+unconst

32

Discussion and Conclusions

Recent academic contributions have been important in understanding the decision

of presidents whether to partially or fully veto, and have explained in detail, mostly for

the US case, the models of veto bargaining between Congress and the President

(Cameron and McCarty, 2004). As has been pointed out in the literature, these models

have provided interesting hypotheses which have been tested for some case studies. In

particular, the findings concerning the games previous to the veto itself have been

illustrative as research has gone through trying to measure the “bargaining” that is

generated by the mere anticipation of a veto. Among conclusions presented by Cameron

and McCarty (2004), the expectation is that when presidents have veto power, they

should get exceptionally rolled in the plenaries (p.415) .Nonetheless, as Aleman and

Schwartz (2006) have pointed out, given certain institutional environments, the real

power in vetoing is limited. However, they do not consider the role of Courts whenever

they exist. Following Aleman and Schwartz’s theoretical findings, the objective of this

paper was to provide a theoretical framework and some empirical results to show that

the use of executive veto power in cases where there is an additional requirement of

constitutional review is significantly different from those explored recently in the

literature.

We use the Colombian case, as one in which the requirements for override are fairly

low, to demonstrate that the existence of the Court opens an opportunity for presidents

to “diversify” their veto strategy in order to maximize their position vis-à-vis Congress.

First, we offer a descriptive model of the interaction between the President, Congress

and the Courts, we derive expectations on some independent variables which could

correlate with more veto activity. We test our expectations with a dataset which has

33

information for all bills introduce from 1998 to 2012. Our results show that vetoes are

rather frequent in the Colombian case, even if its use is highly ineffective. Presidents in

Colombia tend to veto on average, 17% of all national bills and 37% of all local and

regional bills. Minority presidents tend to veto more frequently, and bills more likely to

get vetoed are from legislators outside the governing coalition. Exceptionally, the

President will veto his own bills, after legislators have amended the bill so significantly

that they he longer consider it desirable.

To analyze the fate of bills which have been vetoed, we constructed a database with a

sample of 86 bills, which were coded article by article, as partial vetoes are mostly used

by presidents. First we find that the presidents use the inconvenient and unconstitutional

vetoes interchangeably, even when they are arguing almost identically for vetoing a

particular article. This is especially true for situations in which the President considers

Congress lacks jurisdiction: whenever legislators introduce bills which imply a fiscal

cost, or legislators introduce bills to make structural changes to the state’s

administration. Nonetheless, we find that the average probability of inconvenience

vetoes getting overridden is higher than those vetoes for unconstitutionality or both.

Thus, in time, we observe how the executive adapts and prefers to veto for

unconstitutionality to increase the likelihood that the veto will be upheld. Reacting to

the president’s strategy, the Court eventually changes its opinion over the arguments

given by the president (or just reacts against the President himself), and incrementally

decides against the Executive’s veto, going from almost always supporting the veto

(0,10) to enacting one in two articles vetoed by the end of the term.

34

Further steps in this research will allow us to disentangle whether this is a “presidential

effect” or rather a decision made over the validity of the arguments brought to the

Court. Also, since the enactment of the fiscal rule, it remains to be seen whether given

this new substantive principle within the Constitution, legislators anticipating failure,

will reduce the introduction of this type of bills, or whether the Court will change its

ruling using this new “fiscal principle”.

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Annex 1. Bills Vetoed Classified by Theme

Bill's main issue area Num %Commemorations 81 29,78Social Security 22 8,09Professions 17 6,25Appropriations 12 4,41Transportation 12 4,41Justice 11 4,04Education 10 3,68Sports 10 3,68Labor and employment 7 2,57Territories 6 2,21Famliy Issues 6 2,21National Defense 6 2,21Agriculture 5 1,84Civil rights 5 1,84Economy 5 1,84Energy 5 1,84International affairs 5 1,84Public administration 4 1,47Environment 3 1,1Legislative Branch 3 1,1Citizen participation 3 1,1Communications 3 1,1Notary and Registration 3 1,1Infrastructure 3 1,1Welfare 3 1,1Housing 3 1,1Commerce 2 0,74National Development Plan 2 0,74Executive Branch 2 0,74Administrative issues 2 0,74Disasters 2 0,74Taxes 2 0,74Public Services 1 0,37Control Bodies 1 0,37Women's issues 1 0,37Armed Conflict 1 0,37

Social minorities 1 0,37Political parties 1 0,37Budget 1 0,37Total 272 100

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Annex 2. Table with Expected Probabilities to Create Figure 3.

Pastrana 0,964 0,026 0,896 0,993

Uribe I 0,738 0,118 0,466 0,920

Uribe II 0,790 0,115 0,522 0,948

Uribe III 0,865 0,090 0,632 0,973

Uribe IV 0,933 0,055 0,772 0,990

Pastrana 0,948 0,020 0,898 0,976

Uribe I 0,635 0,093 0,441 0,797

Uribe II 0,706 0,092 0,497 0,853

Uribe III 0,805 0,087 0,593 0,938

Uribe IV 0,906 0,044 0,798 0,966

Pastrana 0,901 0,068 0,721 0,980Uribe I 0,507 0,133 0,252 0,753Uribe II 0,583 0,144 0,293 0,845

Uribe III 0,701 0,153 0,340 0,923

Uribe IV 0,839 0,097 0,596 0,964

Pastrana 0,813 0,075 0,640 0,923

Uribe I 0,310 0,098 0,144 0,508

Uribe II 0,383 0,111 0,190 0,611Uribe III 0,521 0,127 0,276 0,764Uribe IV 0,705 0,122 0,420 0,901

Pastrana 0,588 0,112 0,354 0,787

Uribe I 0,133 0,073 0,038 0,307

Uribe II 0,173 0,084 0,056 0,381

Uribe III 0,266 0,102 0,102 0,509

Uribe IV 0,449 0,150 0,179 0,741

Pastrana 0,763 0,100 0,542 0,921

Uribe I 0,255 0,098 0,102 0,481

Uribe II 0,322 0,119 0,129 0,575

Uribe III 0,453 0,148 0,180 0,736

Uribe IV 0,645 0,133 0,363 0,870

Source: Elaborated by authors.

Period Mean

Inconvenient

Std. Err. [95% Conf. Interval]

Inconvenient, Fiscal

Unconstitutional, Fiscal

Inconvenient, Rights

Unconstitutional, Rights

Unconstitutional

Veto Ground

presidents vs. congress and the constitutional court: an … · 1" " presidents vs....

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