Nixon, Ehrlichman & Timmons on Water bill and Veto

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We have an obstacle to adjournment, Mr. President, that came up this morning.

Yes, sir.

Or we could take some action today.

The men's field in Scottsville called and said that they felt that... Well, that's what you're doing.

I don't know the rights.

That's what you're doing.

That's what they were really...

They got the votes.

Yes, sir.

Both houses?

Yes, sir.

Good.

Bring the people right away.

Let's go.

Can I deal with it for a moment?

Guarantee your adjournment tonight for this?

Oh, hell yes.

And how about the 250 ceiling?

Can we throw the 250 spinning ceiling in on it?

Hell yes.

Get it wherever we can.

The threat is that they will, if there's no answer today on some action, that they'll go out and come in again Wednesday.

presumably to override.

There is a question on whether they can get a quorum.

They've only got 52 senators today, and they had 318 representatives yesterday.

I explored around with some of the guys up there, and they felt they would try to dramatize this issue by sending out the sergeant at arms and planes and all that to bring them back.

And old hill hands seem to think that

that they wouldn't adjourn.

Wednesday, they'd go in recesses until they could get everybody back.

Well, I know what the argument is here.

I guess what you're really trying to say is that, of course, the police assistant here should sign a block bill.

No.

No, I can't.

We may be able to block them.

We all are scared.

I mean, I don't mean your thing, but that's what they're saying.

Sure, that's what they're saying.

But you see, Bob, you see, John, I can't do that.

You have two legs, it seems to me.

One is to veto today in consideration of getting some goodies done and get them out.

The other would be to block them and to say, well, can't decide, can't decide, I'm waiting to hear, I've got a tough problem, and so on, and force them right up to Tuesdays.

And then, see if the pressures on them will be such that they'll go out.

What is it, incidentally, John?

What are the advantages of this?

Is there any difference between pocket vetoes?

This is pocket vetoed sex.

Oh, I know that.

I should have been public relations wise.

Well, public relations wise, I think there's some advantages because you don't get over it.

You're not repudiated.

deal with, you're taking that out of the market, you're sending it down, as I would say, is that, what the hell are we stopping?

I don't think we're getting much stopped now.

What are the bad things?

I'm going to veto the H.R.

1.

That's the only thing that they might do.

They might come up with the H.R.

1.

I'd be delighted to veto it.

I'll veto it.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, but see, in effect, they give you precisely what you asked for.

But they would attach it to three titles.

I really don't know that.

It's possible.

They wouldn't.

He said he would never take it.

He would die.

A lot of them don't believe it.

Too many of them don't believe in it.

If that's a matter of real concern, then I must say, can you go today?

Well, I don't know if it's a matter of real concern.

You might get some kind of a type 4 that would be welfare.

There's a greater possibility for every day they're around that they'll miss you.

Yeah.

On that one.

I don't see much else, though, because they've pretty much cleared the docket of junk.

The attractive...

If they can assure us of a clean spending limitation in the Senate, I don't think they can.

I don't know if the two of them can deliver.

I don't think they can.

I think the man's feet in the wood, and he's too clear against them.

Let me say, I'm not so sure we want to be sure of anything.

John, I'm not sure that we can let this vessel go to the world by getting a half-assed one.

We can blame them.

Or, yeah, frankly, at least it's a little more flexible, and that's the great reason.

You know, well...

Let's follow this one out.

Supposing we were to defer delay on the answer to them.

Could they hold them?

I think the question is, Bill, can they hold their people in after today?

Or will they adjourn anyway today?

They'll probably recess until Wednesday.

and then tell everybody to come back on Wednesday.

And what they'll probably do is hold up some other bills to be acted on Wednesday, such as H.R.

1, debt, and our continuing appropriations.

We checked with Mahon this morning, and he's got a call from the Speaker saying don't move that on the floor, by the way.

I see.

Just this morning.

So Mansfield apparently has talked to the Speaker.

So I think they're prepared to try to come back on Wednesday for an override.

I talked to Ford and asked him if he could get our guys to stay away, and he said he would try, but that he didn't think he'd be successful because they would send all these marshals around to pick them up, and that would be embarrassing to the members who were playing hooky.

So the long and short of this is they're not going home today in any event.

Unless the person agrees to sign the water bill.

Or a veto.

It'll be vetoed.

Today?

Yeah.

I see.

That's it.

So it's going to be vetoed today.

It'll be overwritten today.

And they clean up everything else and go home.

I think that'd be part of the deal, huh?

We won't hang around next week if you give away this one.

Well, John, here it is, if you see it as you'd rather.

rather not run the risk of the water being over-reached.

In other words, that's where you want to come down.

If it's avoidable.

In other words, you'd rather play out of the stream and therefore not give them a chance to run.

Their boats are there over the water today, right?

Let's let the assholes come back on Tuesday.

What more can they do to us except HR1?

And I think that's a slim possibility, getting them families.

So we'll play a little chicken with it.

So I didn't play the chicken bill.

See, the point is, though, the water bill is a time bomb.

I mean, we can sit around here and say, well, I mean, I know Howard Baker and all of your old friends and so forth are insisting we sign the 34th.

But damn it.

Disposing when the spending limitation, you don't spend the next year.

In the next two or three years, the pressure that we have read is to spend $20 billion more than we have

already spent the money for the next two or three years.

Isn't that a problem?

We have spent the money.

Well, we may end up with it anyway, because they may very well stay in session and run out through midnight Tuesday.

And you'll have to veto it, because you can't pocket veto it, because it's still in session.

And then they'll overwrite it, and we'll be stuck with it.

But we will, by doing it today,

We'll never know.

Whether they would have stayed.

Right.

But also, let me say, getting those people back and so forth, I'm not sure they can get them back.

They had to have both houses.

Yes, sir.

Right?

Right.

And they had to have two-thirds of those present in both houses.

He goes to the Senate first.

And we're not as strong in the Senate as we would be in the House.

Gives McGovern a chance to come back to the vote.

Oh, he'll show up for that one, I would think.

We run another risk, though, if they don't get a quorum on Tuesday, and they haven't adjourned, they're recessing over.

And they keep recessing every three days until they can get a quorum.

Then the clock's also running on five or six other bills now that we're going to have down here, the 10-day clock.

Well, that's all right.

Yeah, but some of them may be overwritten, you see, if they ever do get a call.

Right.

So at some point, the mention returns for us, I think, down the pike.

But I think it's worth the gamble, Mr. President.

Say we're looking at the legal ramifications of this, mandatory spending, and all the staff didn't come in, and I just can't tell you what he's going to do on it.

So you have to, Muskie's letter has raised a new legal question.

Oh, sure.

It's not a very significant one.

Nevertheless, he says in the letter something different than he said on the floor.

Does the letter become a part of the legislative history or not?

I have a feeling that we better play the game out.

After all, it looks a little bit like they forced us on this.

And we're really doing it for the good of the country.

We managed to work it.

We're just a question of playing when we know that.

These assholes know that that thing's going to bust the budget.

They know it.

And they can talk all they want about discretionary spending.

That's just on us, too.

How often they want it.

And they go and say, well, he doesn't have to spend the money.

On the other hand, he's against water because he didn't go to the bill.

See my point?

If they wanted to, why didn't they give us our bill, provided we're six feet?

I've almost started to need to message y'all by saying I am for $6 million.

It's all set to go.

I think, I just have a feeling.

Well, we'll just throw it up in their corner and let them struggle with it and see.

Their people don't want to stay in next week either.

They're tired.

52 centimeters a day.

If they can't get a corpsman, it should make them look bad, I think.

If they have to go over every three days to try to pull in a corpsman,

I think that John went to see him.

In the meantime, John, you'd be prepared to do background reading and so forth like the hell on this man.

If we start tomorrow, we better get a signal of that.

I think we can talk about all the tax troubles, about how much it's going to increase everybody's taxes, about the big spending, and six billion wasn't enough, and start to move that.

Your responsibility.

Amen.

Nixon, Ehrlichman & Timmons on Water bill and Veto

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 14, 1972

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