The last U.S. president to veto fewer bills than Barack Obama was … Millard Fillmore, who was president from 1850 to 1853. Obama has vetoed exactly two bills in six years, according to a summary of vetoed bills tracked by the U.S. Senate.
By contrast, Bill Clinton vetoed 37 bills (36 regular and one pocket veto), George H.W. Bush vetoed 44 (29 regular and 15 pocket), and Ronald Reagan vetoed 78 (39 regular and 39 pocket).
Even President George W. Bush, who conservatives frequently criticized for not vetoing more Republican spending bills, vetoed 12 (all regular).
You have to go back 160 years to Millard Fillmore to find a president who vetoed fewer bills than Obama, because Fillmore didn’t veto any.*
However, prior to Fillmore presidents didn’t veto many bills. Of the 12 presidents who preceded him, five vetoed none and two vetoed only one. After Fillmore multiple vetoes became common. FDR vetoed 635 (though he had 12 years to do it), Harry Truman vetoed 250 and Dwight Eisenhower vetoed 181.
The only other president to veto just two bills was George Washington; and it’s probably safe to say that’s the ONLY thing Obama and Washington have in common.
Why has Obama vetoed so few, especially given the fact that he’s been saddled with a contrarian Republican House for four years?
It’s not because the House didn’t pass bills; it passed a bunch. But soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has stopped almost every piece of legislation that might embarrass Obama or force him to make a tough or unpopular decision.
So while Obama likes to boast to the press that he will make tough decisions, his man in the Senate has protected him for doing so for six long years.
Factcheck.org and the Washington Post have been trying to defend Reid’s record as being nothing out of the norm. But only two vetoes in six years, with a Republican-controlled House for four of those years, implies otherwise.
The good news is that Obama can kiss that protection racket goodbye come January. Republicans are promising—and the president has conceded as much—that the House and Senate will start sending Obama bills. Now instead of hiding behind Harry Reid, Obama will have to veto bills he doesn’t like and explain why—which may make him even more unpopular than he already is.
* Note: James A. Garfield, who was president for a short time in 1881, also didn’t veto any bills because he was shot by an assassin after only four months in office.