Law would have required release of income taxes in order to be eligible to appear on the California ballot.

by Brian Leubitz

Sometimes you never know with Governor Brown. And so is the case with SB149:

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation Sunday that would have required presidential candidates to release five years of income tax returns before their names could appear on the California ballot. The bill, SB149 by Sens. Mike McGuire, D-Ukiah, and Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, was approved in the Legislature largely along party lines. Though it does not mention President Trump, it clearly targeted the commander in chief, the first in 40 years to withhold his tax documents from the public. (SF Gate)

With Gavin Newsom, you know how this would have turned out. He’d be all aboard this train, but Jerry gets uncomfortable. He comes up with a slippery slope argument; he questions the constitutionality. In his veto message (PDF), Brown does just that:

Add in the fact that he didn’t release his tax returns for either of his governor’s races, and you have one uneasy guy. I never thought he was *likely* to sign the bill, but I’m not sure I would have been surprised either way.

In other news, the governor made decisions on a number of other notable measures, including signing SB179 which allows the selection of a non-binary gender designation, and vetoing SB649, a telecom-backed measure that would have expedited the approval of cell phone towers.