item veto - Authority to veto part rather than all of an appropriations act. The president does not now have item-veto authority. He must sign or veto the entire appropriations act. The item veto sometimes is referred to as a line-item veto.
Congressional Sessions lists all Congresses and corresponding years - from 1789, when the 1st Congress met, through the current Congress.
You can access legislative information, by bill number or key words, from the THOMAS Web site. Information from the present back to the 93rd Congress (1973) is available on THOMAS.
For information on the Senate, Congress, the legislative process and the federal government, the Virtual Reference Desk is a good place to begin.