Congress Completes Farm Bill

The farm bill has completed its long, strange trip into law.

The final touches came Wednesday, when the House and Senate for a second time overrode President Bush’s veto of the farm bill.

The House voted 317-109 to override Bush’s veto, issued earlier in the day. A few hours later, the Senate followed with a 80-14 vote.

The additional votes were necessary because of a clerical error in the House. When the House and Senate initially approved the bill in May, the official “parchment” copy sent to the White House omitted one of the measure’s 15 titles.

As a result, the bill initially vetoed by the president was not the full version of the bill approved by Congress. The error was not discovered until after the House had already voted to override Bush’s veto.

– Ian Swanson