So Lauren Boebert, together with her Colorado congressional colleague Jeff Hurd and the support of both Colorado Senators, managed to get a non-controversial and bipartisan water project bill for her rural constituents in southeast Colorado unanimously passed in both the House and Senate — only to have her Dear Leader suddenly decide to demonstrate just how petty and vindictive he could truly be by issuing the very first veto of his second term. From Trump’s veto message, as reported by KDVR:
“Enough is enough. My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.
“For these reasons, I cannot support the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. Therefore, it is my duty to return H.R. 131 to the House of Representatives without my approval,” said Trump in the letter.
Needless to say, this did not go over well with our latest recruit for the Resistance, who had some choice words in response:
“President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections.
“I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects. My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape.
“But hey, if this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans; that’s on them.
“I’m going to continue fighting for Colorado and standing up for our rural communities, our farmers, and every family that deserves safe, reliable drinking water without decades more delay.”
The real issue here of course is that Boebert, along with fellow ultra-MAGAs MTG, Thomas Massie, and Nancy Mace was instrumental in forcing a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in the House that Trump obviously feels is an existential threat to his Presidency, so this is just part of the inevitable payback he tries to mete out to anyone who dares cross him. So what now becomes of H.R. 131?
Congress rarely overrides a presidential veto, having done so only 111 times (4.3%) of a total 2,576 vetoes by the sitting president at the time, according to the Congress website.
Conversely, it is nearly unprecedented for a president to veto a bill that had a voting rate of 100-0 in the Senate and 435-0 in the House. The Congress website did not have any instances recorded in its database.
The question now becomes just how many of those Republican Congressmen and Senators might be willing to risk Trump’s ire by voting to override the veto, even though they are already on record as unanimously supporting the bill.
