Governor kills chiropractic board bill

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill Thursday that sought to provide greater state control of a controversial board that regulates chiropractors, arguing that changes already under way are enough.

Senate Bill 801 would have put a measure on the June ballot to strip the Board of Chiropractic Examiners of its historic autonomy by making it a part of a state department that oversees other professional licensing boards. The board was created by a 1922 initiative that for 85 years has largely governed the profession.

Schwarzenegger said he was vetoing the bill because the board is already working with the Department of Consumer Affairs to "correct any prior deficiencies."

In March, with longtime Schwarzenegger friend Richard Tyler at the helm, the board took several procedurally improper steps, including removing the executive director without due process.

A legislative review later concluded that the board had repeatedly violated open meetings laws, tried to fire workers protected by civil service, and invited chiropractors facing discipline to talk to board members, despite the fact that board members are supposed to act as impartial judges.

"I do not feel it is necessary at this time to go through the expense of placing this measure on the ballot to essentially codify existing practice," Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto message. He added that he did not support using chiropractic license fees to pay for the ballot costs.

A legislative analysis estimated the costs of putting the measure on the June ballot as $220,000. The board's annual budget is more than $2 million.

The veto of SB 801 has the inadvertent effect of throwing the board's budget into limbo because it also would have restored money the Legislature slashed earlier this year. Theoretically, the board, which polices the state's 15,000 chiropractors, will run out of money halfway through the fiscal year in January.

SB 801's author, Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, called the governor's veto justification "weak."

"There's no good reason for this particular profession not being in step with all the other health-related boards," the Los Angeles Democrat said. "You can't have a board behaving as government outlaws. ... The administration knows this board has behaved very poorly and, in many respects, irresponsibly."

The board's actions have come under fire from chiropractors and others who believe they are promoting theories not based on science and hampering efforts to give chiropractors a more professional reputation.

Ridley-Thomas vowed to take up the issue again when the Legislature reconvenes in January. He said it would be up to the board and the administration to figure out what to do about the budget.

At the heart of the controversy were conflicting views of chiropractors' role in providing health care.

Tyler and other Schwarzenegger appointees, including former bodybuilder and longtime friend of the governor Franco Columbu, believe that past boards took too strict a view of what chiropractors should be allowed to do and harassed those they wrongly accused of going too far.

Tyler, who picked Schwarzenegger up at the airport when he arrived in the United States, said Thursday that he was pleased by the veto. He said he had not spoken to the governor about it.

SB 801 would have meddled with an initiative that has "worked well" for 85 years, he said. And it would have put chiropractors under the power of a state department dominated by medical interests, which historically have tried to box in chiropractors, Tyler said.

"This would have put us again at the mercy of the medical profession," he said. People "deserve the right to make an alternative decision" about their health care by seeing chiropractors.

The California Chiropractic Association opposed the bill even after legislators at the last minute stripped a provision chiropractors found most distasteful: giving the Legislature power over the kinds of treatment that chiropractors could provide.

The association wrote in a Sept. 13 letter to Schwarzenegger that it was "troubled by last minute amendments made to SB 801 and the unknown ramifications of those changes. ... Please veto this legislation as it is overly broad and has the potential to limit patients' access to the drugless care they want and need to remain healthy and active."

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• The Bee's John Hill can be reached at (916) 326-5543 or jhill@sacbee.com.