Legislative Democrats for about two minutes today were given a big disincentive to override a pending Gubernatorial veto of the just-passed state budget.  Just minutes ago the Governor made it clear in prepared remarks at a press conference that he will not sign a budget that is absent real structural budget reforms.  Of course we here at the FlashReport feel that we need a true Gann-style spending cap in place if we are going to have real reform.  While legislative Republicans support that, it has not been introduced by the Governor.  But even the "lite" version of budget reform, championed by the Governor, was gutted by the Democrats.

The Governor actually said that if the legislature overrides his veto (which can be done with the same 2/3 vote in each house that just passed it), that he will respond by using his veto pen on all of the nearly 900 pieces of legislation sitting on his desk!  This really throws down the gauntlet at Perata, Bass and their other Democrat legislators, since virtually any piece of meaningful legislation on the Governor’s desk is something they put there.

My mind started to race…  Republican legislators actually may see this "threat" from the Governor as more of an incentive.  Only in GOP dreams could we imagine Governor Schwarzenegger vetoing the hoards of terrible bills on his desk (and I can tell you as we hone our own list of "Top 20 Bills To Veto" that there are a lot of stinkers).

Hey, with a prize like a veto of all of the legislation on the Governor’s desk, you may even some some of the Republicans who voted against the budget the first time to actually vote for the override.

I don’t think I know a single GOP legislator that wouldn’t toss the assorted collection of GOP sponsored non-binding resolutions, studies and commemorative license plate programs that make up the bulk of the legislation they could get past the Dems.

For two whole minutes, I was getting excited – then….. STOP THE PRESSES.

Then came the Q&A portion of the event.  Quickly the Governor backpedaled on this decisive and assertive threat, with some vague description of some kind of bills that he would veto.  I think he mentioned job killers?  Is that an implication that if they don’t override him, he will sign job killers?  Anyways, the point being that this Governor continues to flip and flop in a way that allows him to be judged only by his actions, not his words.

Maybe he will veto the budget — then again, maybe he won’t.  Would you bet your life on it?  I wouldn’t.

On a closing note, it seems to me that the normal calculus in a budget veto and potential override would be a pause on the part of legislators of a Governor’s own party to override a veto.  But this Governor has postured himself, especially in this budget debate, as his own Party of One — consistently referring to "Republicans" in the third party, instead of the first.  So I suspect the reservoir of support for upholding his veto of this budget is pretty low.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.