Governor’s Final Bill-Signing Decisions: Waiting for Consistent “Subsidiarity” The ability to sign and veto legislation is a powerful tool. Governors set a policy tone with their decisions. Veto messages are always read closely, and a governor’s propensity for vetoing bills is also evaluated. In 2011 Gov. Brown vetoed approximately 14 percent of bills, but in 2012 that percentage dropped to 12 percent. Some vetoes can be attributed to avoiding decisions that could undermine the governor’s tax measure at the ballot box. Whether Gov. Brown reverts to his track record of the 1970s, when he vetoed only 4 percent of all bills over eight years, remains to be seen. Should he return to such practices, keeping bills harmful to local control off of his desk will be even more critical. The first half of this governor’s term has had one notable high (pension reform) and some deep lows (for example, redevelopment dissolution) for cities. In 2011 the governor’s sign-veto decisions were consistent with the League’s request just 56 percent of the time, and he signed some of the most controversial League-opposed bills, such as AB 438 (Williams), limiting contracting for library staffing and AB 646 (Atkins) requiring compulsory fact-finding. In 2012 the governor’s decisions were improved, but this also reflects that the
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League was more successful in keeping controversial items from reaching his desk. The League appreciated his veto of AB 2451 (Pérez), which proposed costly, expanded death benefits to the descendants of firefighters and police. Yet the governor also vetoed SB 214 (Wolk) and several other bills that would have provided additional tools to local governments to develop infrastructure and pursue economic development.
subsidiarity” when vetoing AB 2242 (Dickinson), a measure that would have undercut the ability of school districts to handle disruptive students. About that bill he wrote, “The principle of subsidiarity calls for greater, not less, deference to our elected school boards, which are directly accountable to the citizenry.” To city officials, this mirrors a definition of “local control.” It would be welcome if the governor applied this principle to bills on his desk in a consistent manner during the final two years of his term.
Each year Gov. Brown shares concepts derived from his Jesuit education. In 2012 he described the “principle of
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Western City, January 2013
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