For the remainder of his presidency, Ford fought what he viewed as the erosion of presidential power. In his two and a half years in office, he issued sixty-six vetoes. With their sweeping majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats overrode his vetoes a dozen times. A new generation of lawmakers, elected in the post-Watergate era, saw unchecked presidential power as a threat to the nation, not its salvation. The Church Committee consensus that improper activities by the FBI and CIA were not acceptable and that both organizations required congressional oversight was widely embraced. The
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