D’OH!!!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawmakers scrambled Thursday to fix a clerical error that derailed an effort to override President Bush's veto of a $300 billion farm bill.
Congress may have to revote on a $300 billion farm bill due to what Democrats called a clerical error.

The House of Representatives voted 316-108 Wednesday to override the president's veto, but shortly after the vote, lawmakers learned that a "not particularly controversial" section of the bill was accidentally omitted from the version that Congress sent to the White House, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland.
The discovery prompted concerns from Hoyer's Republican counterpart that the override vote was improper.

"What's happened here raises serious constitutional questions -- very serious," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "I don't see how we can proceed with the override as it occurred."

Hoyer suggested that the section left out of the original bill -- authorizing trade and food aid -- could be approved by both houses of Congress and sent back to Bush, "either to be signed by him or vetoed by him, and we would consider it in that context."
But late Wednesday, a Democratic leadership aide said the House likely will hold an entirely new vote on the complete farm bill, move it to the Senate for a quick vote and send it to the White House -- where Bush is likely to let it die without his signature during the Memorial Day recess.

Democrats said the matter stemmed from a clerical error. But Republicans pounced on what they called a "fiasco," which they said would require a temporary extension of the current farm bill.