Gov. Brown vetoes high percentage of bills.

by Brian Leubitz

Every year, legislators from each house get a certain number of bills they can carry. It varies from year to year, depending on leadership, but can vary from as little as 10 to well more than double that number.  Every year, legislators basically go shopping for bill ideas. Some of them come in through the normal constituent relationships. Others from lobbyists of sponsoring organizations, and well, various other sources.

The interesting part of this is that legislators typically want to get their total up to the line.  Whether that is to make it appear that they have a lot of accomplishments, or to look busy is a matter of perspective.  However, every year we get a slew of bills at the end of session, many very important. Others, well, less so.

Gov. Brown prefers a less is more approach, and when it has come to vetoing bills that have come across his desk during this bill frenzy, it has shown.

From mid-September to late Sunday night, Brown signed 466 bills and vetoed 97, his office said.

Brown’s veto rate for the year overall was slightly lower, at about 14 percent. In the first year of his third term, Brown signed 760 bills, vetoed 128 and allowed one bill to become law without his signature, his office said. (SacBee)

Now, the 17.2% veto rate isn’t astronomical, as it is far lower than Gov. Schwarzenegger’s rate. However, given that his party is in control of the Legislature, you would expect that number to be slightly lower. But, again…less is more in Jerry’s world.

There were a few bills on the recent action pile that are worth a bit of note.  Sen. Juan Vargas’ bill against supercenters, SB 469, got the veto stamp.  The bill would have required supercenter developers to conduct an economic impact report to disclose impacts upon local economies prior to being approved to build in a local jurisdiction.  But, with the false notion that we don’t want to slow Wal-Mart from “creating jobs”, nobody has really sat back and thought of the real economic toll on the economy.  And apparently, it won’t be happening in 2012 either.

Brown also vetoed a bill regulating “debit card paychecks”.  These debit cards are targeted at low income workers and carry some pretty onerous fees, as part of the high cost of being poor.  But banks generally get their way when their lobbyists are involved, and they were able to get Gov. Brown to kill the bill while saying that he wants to work with the institutions and the Legislature to find a “compromise” for the debit cards.

Finally, in case you didn’t hear, the Governor signed the shark finning ban, at least one bill that environmentalists and progressives could count as an accomplishment.

Three years before the election, Governor already faces scrutiny about his plans.

by Brian Leubitz

While Jerry Brown was busy over the weekend signing bills to ban synthetic marijuana and bar a San Francisco measure to ban circumcision, apparently people are pretty excited about replacing him.  Or perhaps more accurately, people are excited to talk about people who could replace him.

“I’ve extremely enjoyed my first year,” Brown said. “I find it — I don’t know if I’d call it exhilarating — but I find it quite engaging and interesting and fully worthy of my total involvement.”

There had been speculation when the now 73-year-old Brown was first elected to what actually amounted to a third term that he would not run again.

If he does decide to seek another term it would cause serious damage to any number of folks who want to be governor. (LA DN)

Of course, this came up in the context of an interview with CalBuzz a while back, though from their article, the question seemed to be directed more at how Brown was handling his first year back in the Horseshoe.  But, Sacramento being what it is, there are always people eyeing the top spot, and tons more willing to talk about people eyeing it.  From every statewide elected official to a the big city mayors, there will be attention on the 2014 race.

Did I mention that Brown has been in the office less than a year?  Welcome to the 24 hour news cycle.

The clock ticking down on the last night in the California statehouse is always a lot like waiting for last call at a rowdy bar around 2 AM — you wonder how much damage will done before the last shot.

The clock ticking down on the last night in the California statehouse is always a lot like waiting for last call at a rowdy bar around 2 AM — you wonder how much damage will done before the last shot.

For years my colleagues and I have stood watch on the California legislature,into the wee hours of the morning, to make sure that politicians and companies didn’t a pull a fast one at the last moment. There have been a lot of close calls over the years, and some lost ones too.

Here’s the roundup from Friday night’s/Saturday morning’s last call in the statehouse before 2012:

•     Last day legislation to move all ballot initiative measures to the November 2012 ballot, and stop ballot measures on the June primaries, cleared both houses of the legislature. Senate Bill 202 passed every committee and both houses in a single day. It’s not clear whether Governor Brown will sign SB 202,  but if he did, the public would win big.  Special interest groups often target the low turn-out June primary to pass measures the majority of Californians would never approve of.  It’s better to have the real sentiment of the most Californians voting on ballot measures, rather than allowing corporations, for example, to target a much more friendly electorate in June, when Republicans will turn out big for their presidential primary.  Mercury Insurance CEO George Joseph is trying to qualify his insurance surcharge initiative in June, a repeat of the failed Prop 17 from June 2010, for this very reason.  He would stand even less a chance of pulling the wool over the eyes of the majority of real California voters in November.  Turns out SB 202 stands on strong principle.   For decades, prior to 1978, initiatives only went on the November general election ballot, which is what the California constitution requires.  Then the legislature officially changed the protocol.  If the legislature can change the definition of “general election” to include primary election, it can change the definition back.

•    Legislation requiring health insurance companies to cover behavioral therapy for autistic children went to the Governor’s desk, SB 694.  Consumer Watchog sued Governor Schwarzenegger’s Department Of Managed Health Care to force such continued coverage for autistic children in 2009, when the state started allowing insurance companies to deny the treatment as “educational.”  A 9th Circuit decision recently strengthened our legal case, which is still pending, that the Mental Health Parity Law requires behavioral therapy to be covered.   The insurance companies no doubt hope the new legislation will undermine our lawsuit and other pending cases against them, because they don’t want to have to pay for the therapy they have denied since 2009.  Senator Steinberg, however, testified that he believed such therapy was always required and the legislation was clarifying existing law.  We expect to prevail.

*  The bill to force health insurance companies to get prior approval from state insurance regulators before raising rates never came up for a vote on the Senate Floor. AB 52, authored by Assembly Member Mike Feuer,  was shelved for the year  because the legislation did not have enough votes in the insurance-friendly state Senate.  Consumer Watchdog is exploring a November 2012 ballot measure to regulate health insurance premiums, rollback rates by 20% and gives patients new options. Stay tuned for developments as our opinion research and drafting continues this fall.

Governor Brown hosted a kegger in his office for the legislature after it closed down in the early morning hours.  For the public, there wasn’t much to celebrate this session, other than that more damage wasn’t done.

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Jamie Court is the president of Consumer Watchdog and author of The Progressive’s Guide To Raising Hell.