Veto (Lat., 'I forbid'), in Politics, the power which one branch of the government of a country may have to negative the resolutions of another branch. In the United Kingdom the power of the crown in the act of legislation is confined to a veto.
The crown cannot of itself make any alterations in the existing law, but may refuse to sanction alterations suggested and consented to by the two houses of parliament. The royal veto is reserved for extreme emergencies; the last instance in which it was exercised was in 1707, when Queen Anne refused her assent to a bill relating to the militia in Scotland. The House of Lords may reject (and so for a time veto) bills passed by the Commons. In bills of supply the power of the House of Lords amounts merely to a veto, as does that of the House of Commons in bills affecting the peerage. The question as to a British veto on Irish legislation was one of the difficulties in the scheme of Home Rule for Ireland. In the United States of America the president has a qualified right to veto all laws passed by congress; but after that veto has been exercised the bill which he has rejected may become law by being passed by two-thirds of each house of congress. The same rule applies in most of the states, a two-thirds vote in both branches of the legislature passing a bill over the governor's veto. In others the proportion is three-fifths, and in several a simple majority suffices. The president's power of veto was in the earliest days of the republic very sparingly used, but is now resorted to with comparative frequency; while, as an extreme instance, in the state of New York, with a demoralised legislature, no less than 236 bills were vetoed by the governor in one session. The Swiss referendum includes the power of veto (see SWITZERLAND, p. 22). For the Polish liberum veto, see POLAND, Vol. VIII. p. 271. In revolutionary France in 1795 a Council of Ancients was created, with a power to veto the resolutions of the legislative body. For the Veto Act in the Scottish Church, see SCOTLAND, Vol. IX. p. 245, and FREE CHURCH. The veto is sometimes a name given to total prohibition in temperance legislation; see LIQUOR LAWS, TEMPERANCE.