A line-item veto is a veto by the president or a governor of only parts of a bill passed by Congress or the legislature. For instance, an executive with line-item veto authority might approve a budget as a whole but reject certain items in it, like funding for a particular highway. Most state governors have line-item veto authority. The president was briefly granted limited line-item veto power beginning in 1996, but in 1998 the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional.