Brown tops Deukmejian, Reagan in signing bills
It's official: Gov. Jerry Brown has now made the state record books as the most prolific bill signer in decades.
With his actions over the weekend, Brown has now signed more regular session bills – 12,744 – than any other governor since 1967, surpassing George Deukmejian and Ronald Reagan, according to an analysis by the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance.
It's true that Brown now has had 10 years to post his numbers, while the two Republicans he passed had only eight each.
The third-term Democratic governor signed 876 regular session bills this year, announcing the last of them on Sunday.
Deukmejian and Reagan signed 12,530 bills and 12,486 bills, respectively, during their eight-year tenures, according to the analysis.
Brown, governor before from 1975 to 1983, has now vetoed a total of 773 regular session bills, the fewest of any governor since the "pocket veto" era ended in 1967. Brown vetoed 120 regular session bills this year. His veto rate this year of 12 percent is slightly lower than the 14 percent rate he posted in 2011, as well as the average veto rate of 13 percent since 1967.
As governor before, he vetoed fewer than 5 percent of regular session bills.
CAMPAIGN WATCH
Hollywood giants Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen have given a combined $100,000 to Gov. Jerry Brown's tax hike initiative. The trio have contributed heavily in the past to California campaigns. The donations came two days before Brown announced he signed bills extending an annual $100 million film tax credit until 2017.
WORTH REPEATING
"We will work with him, but what does it mean when he's carrying water for toxic industries?"
KATHRYN PHILLIPS, director of Sierra Club California, referring to a move by Sen. Michael Rubio, newly minted chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality, to delay regulation of toxic chemicals in consumer goods
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