Schwarzenegger sets California veto record

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SAN FRANCISCO -- A week after he signed the tardiest budget in state history, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set another record: He vetoed the largest percentage of bills this year of any California governor in four decades.Schwarzenegger declined to sign 415 of the 1,187 bills that had landed on his desk by Tuesday's midnight deadline, a rate of 35 percent, by far the highest since state officials began keeping that statistic when Ronald Reagan was governor.Some lawmakers said Wednesday they are so angry at the governor that working with him next year could be a difficult challenge."I think he's going to have a tough time regaining credibility in the Legislature," said state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter (Kern County).Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), said she's heard complaints from many frustrated lawmakers."I am concerned about how we work together," she said, adding that she hopes in the end the interest of Californians would outweigh any bitterness harbored between lawmakers and Schwarzenegger.Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said "the governor weighed each bill on its merits and acted accordingly.""Obviously when you have the latest budget (ever) passed by the Legislature, that will have an effect on the legislative process including the bill-signing period. We had 11 days to do what other governors in history had 30 days to do," McLear said.In August, with the budget impasse dragging on, Schwarzenegger threatened to veto all bills sent to him until the Legislature approved a budget. That happened on Sept. 19 -- 81 days into the fiscal year that began July 1.In interviews with The Chronicle and others, Schwarzenegger has said he wants to go after big-ticket measures and is not interested in approving what he called "Mickey Mouse bills."He seemed to follow that logic in the past week when he signed high-profile legislation such as SB375 by Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which sets regional goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by discouraging sprawl.Schwarzenegger vetoed many bills that sought to add new fees, such as a measure that would have added a $60 fee per shipping container to raise money to clean up air pollution from the state's largest ports, including Oakland's.The governor also vetoed several health care bills, arguing that the state needs comprehensive health care reform, a goal he has failed to achieve.Political pundits said Schwarzenegger's high veto rate shows the disconnect between him and the Democratic-controlled Legislature, which has often butted heads with the Republican governor."It certainly shows that the Legislature and the governor's office are not working well together," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonprofit research center in Los Angeles.Many lawmakers were livid in the wake of the veto bloodbath, saying they were especially angered by the governor's use of a generic veto message for about one-third of the rejected bills. It read:"The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at the end of the year's legislative session. Given the delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest priority for California. This bill does not meet that standard and I cannot sign it at this time."Florez said the statement shows the governor is "politically lazy. I mean, to write a generic veto message that applied to more than 100 bills."Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County), said it appeared that Schwarzenegger "didn't even read the bills ... and to me, it's dereliction of duty."But while the late budget might be partly to blame for forcing the governor to face a heap of legislation in the last two weeks, he had a hand in receiving nearly 900 bills in short order after his blanket veto threat nearly two months ago.Legislators responded by holding on to hundreds of bills rather than sending them down to the governor's office on the first floor of the state Capitol.But lawmakers said Schwarzenegger could have started considering the bills before they landed on his desk because legislative staffers typically work with the governor's staff even as the measures wade through the Legislature."The governor's staff must have been in some sort of hibernation period and somehow did not have recollection of the bills that the governor had received," Florez said.E-mail Matthew Yi at myi(at)sfchronicle.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)