Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set a modern-day record for vetoing legislation, rejecting nearly 35 percent of bills that reached his desk in 2008. That veto rate shattered the old record of just under 25 percent, set by former Gov. Gray Davis.
In all, Schwarzenegger signed 772 bills and vetoed 415 this year.
Schwarzenegger's poor relationship with the Legislature - he also threatened to become the first governor known to veto a budget bill earlier this summer - certainly accounts for part of the high veto rate.
But Schwarzenegger has denied any ill will toward lawmakers after the record-setting budget impasse.
"No, in our business it's never about getting back at anyone," Schwarzenegger said earlier this week.
Instead, he blamed the compressed timeframe to consider bills.
"We have normally 30 days to sign bills and because of the delay in the budget we only had 10 this year," Schwarzenegger said, "so that put a tremendous amount of pressure on us."
On nearly one-third of the bills that Schwarzenegger vetoed, he affixed a generic veto stamp that he was signing only bills that are "the highest priority for California."
Read more about that generic veto -- and which bills fell victim to it -- here.
The total number of 2008 vetoes ranks second in the last forty-plus years. In 1990, then-Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed a record 436 bills (though he also signed 1,707), a veto rate of 20.35 percent, according to records kept by the Senate Local Government Committee.
In his five years in the governorship, Schwarzenegger has consistently vetoed more bills than his predecessors, accounting for five of the top seven veto-rates in the last 40 years. The combination of the Legislature passing fewer bills and Schwarzenegger wielding the veto pen more liberally has meant fewer new California laws in the last five years.
On the flip side, former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the fewest bills since 1967, rejecting only 30 would-be laws in 1982. That was a veto rate of 1.79 percent.
Photo: Gov. Arnold Schwarzengger speaking at a press conference in September 2008. Credit: José Luis Villegas, Sacramento Bee.
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