Reporter’s Notebook: House attempts to override Trump vetoes on Colorado water project, Florida Everglades

The House will try Thursday to override President Donald Trump on two bills he vetoed recently. 

One is the “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” which provides water to southeastern Colorado. The other is the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act. It hands over a portion of the Florida Everglades to the tribe.

Both bills passed the House and Senate unanimously.

The president criticized Colorado Democrat Gov. Jared Polis as a “bad” governor when explaining his reasons for vetoing that bill. The president caught criticism from Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., whose district would benefit from the water project.

Trump and Boebert have been at loggerheads since she was one of the most outspoken voices pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The House will debate and vote on overriding the Colorado water project Thursday. We only expect debate on the Florida issue on Thursday.

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It takes a two-thirds vote of those casting ballots to override a veto. The House currently has 431 members. So if every member votes, it takes 288 yeas to override. So you don’t know the magic number until the vote is closed, because it’s contingent on the total number of members casting ballots.

There is a good chance that the House could override the president’s veto – considering the fact that the House approved the bill unanimously.

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These two vetoes are the first ones of Trump’s second term.

The president vetoed 10 bills during his first term. Eight veto overrides failed. Lawmakers never attempted the override on one of them. But Congress overrode the veto of the annual defense policy bill in late 2020/early 2021.

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Successful veto overrides are rare. There have only been 112 veto overrides in the history of the republic. That’s out of 1,531 “regular” presidential vetoes. So that’s about 4%.

Here’s another footnote:

The Senate also votes Thursday to rebuke the president over war powers and U.S. action in Venezuela. A similar measure came close to passing in the fall, before the recent operation in Venezuela. It’s unclear if the war powers resolution passes.

However, if the House overrides the president’s veto on the Colorado water bill and the Senate votes in favor of the war powers resolution, that would mark two rare rebukes by the Republican president in one day.