<P> This was not the first time that a president has attempted to pocket veto a bill despite the presence of agents to receive his veto message . Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton made similar attempts, and Abraham Lincoln used it against the Wade - Davis Bill in 1864 . </P> <P> After nearly a century of pocket vetoes, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled pocket vetoes unconstitutional in 1969 . Governor Edgar Whitcomb requested that General Assembly pass an act repealing all laws that were enacted because of the Supreme Court decision, some of which were nearly a century old . The assembly complied with the request and passed a blanket repeal . </P> <P> Because a pocket veto cannot be overridden, it is sometimes used to describe situations where either one person, or a small group, can override the will of a much larger group without consequence . For example, when the California Supreme Court was answering the certified question of intervenor standing in the case of Perry v. Brown (known as the Proposition 8 case), one of the justices expressed concern that denying appellate standing to initiative proponents would mean that the governor and state attorney general would "essentially get a' pocket veto' ." </P>

If the president does not act on a bill within 10 days