Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs off on two proposals in Los Angeles, October 12, 2023, to transform the state’s mental health system and address the worsening homelessness crisis.
Over the weekend, the deadline passed for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign bills passed in this legislative session. And to be clear, most of them earned Newsom’s signature. He advanced bills that will make it easier to build housing, clarify water rights, ban junk fees, limit security deposits, tax guns and ammunition, allow legislative staff to unionize, increase paid sick days, raise wages for fast-food workers, require disclosure from large companies on climate emissions, give residents the strongest right-to-repair protections in the nation, and (controversially) allow for expansions of involuntary mental health treatment.
But you may have heard about Newsom’s vetoes, which have gotten a fair bit of attention. AB 309, Assemblymember Alex Lee’s social-housing bill, got a veto. So did SB 90, which would have established a $35-per-month co-pay cap on insulin. Newsom also vetoed bills that would prohibit caste discrimination, decriminalize psychedelics, create an ombudsperson to adjudicate denials of public-records requests, provide unemployment benefits to striking workers, ban driverless truck operations, develop a master plan for climate-resistant schools, and many more. Roughly 1 in 5 bills that reached Newsom’s desk were vetoed this year.
Speculation has run rampant over whether Newsom is prepping a future run for the White House by moderating on various issues. But it’s not abnormal to see governors in the Golden State exercise their veto pen. Newsom vetoed 14 percent of bills seeking his signature last year (169 vetoes in all), up from 7.89 percent in 2021. Outside of Newsom’s 2021 performance, governors have vetoed at least 10 percent of all bills presented to them every year since 2004.
What is as rare as the California condor is the legislature actually attempting to override those vetoes with a two-thirds vote. Since a run of four overrides in an eight-month stretch of Jerry Brown’s first stint as governor in 1980, not a single one of the over 8,700 gubernatorial vetoes has been touched. This has held since 2012, when Democrats obtained a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature, meaning that any veto could be overridden if legislative Democrats stuck together. Indeed, bills with unanimous or near-unanimous support consistently get vetoed and never heard from again.
This impotence from the legislature, an abdication of its check on the executive, is an artifact of a rigid legislative calendar and an extreme top-down deference to power. It profoundly distorts what a state that prides itself as a policy laboratory for the nation can actually accomplish.
Some of Newsom’s veto messages, like the anti–caste discrimination bill and the driverless truck bill, argue that existing regulations are sufficient. But many of the vetoes were justified due to costs. Newsom repeated a line in dozens of vetoes about how the legislature sent him bills with fiscal impact that would “add nearly $19 billion of unaccounted costs in the budget.” But $19 billion is the total number, which includes bills he signed. And some vetoes prevented the tiniest of expenditures.
Since a run of four overrides in 1980, not a single one of the over 8,700 gubernatorial vetoes has been touched.
Newsom claimed that the ombudsperson for public records, for example, would cost “tens of millions” of dollars, a rounding error in California’s $300 billion annual budget and $37.2 billion budget reserve. (Apparently, maintaining the most stringent fiscal discipline justifies repeatedly violating public-records laws.) The master plan for climate-resilient schools is even cheaper, costing “up to $10 million” according to Newsom’s veto message. That’s .003 percent of the total state budget, at most. For a bill that would have authorized San Francisco to continue an existing pilot that gives low-income jurors $100 a day instead of $15, Newsom didn’t even bother to estimate a figure, merely claiming it was too expensive.
On bills without budgetary implications, Newsom still fretted about costs, like the potential increased tax on employers that would come with allowing striking workers to access unemployment insurance. With the insulin co-pay cap, Newsom highlighted his high-profile effort to have the state manufacture insulin itself, leading to costs even lower than the cap. But that program is not yet operative, meaning that many Californians will unnecessarily pay more for insulin while they wait for state manufacturing to ramp up.
But the insulin bill has another important characteristic: It passed unanimously through both the State Assembly (79-0) and the Senate (39-0). The climate-resilient schools bill passed 39-0 in the Senate and 76-1 in the Assembly. Numerous other vetoes this year and in the past were exercised on bills with strong bipartisan or even unanimous support. It would be trifling to override the veto, yet it never happens. Why?
One obstacle is the legislative schedule in California, which involves a series of deadlines worsened by procrastination. Bills must be introduced by February, passed out of committee by April, passed out of their chamber by May, and passed through both houses by the end of August. Very few bills get done in advance of this schedule, so at the end of August, there’s typically this giant pile of legislation awaiting a governor’s signature.
The legislature then leaves for the year, and the governor decides what to sign afterward. Only months later does the legislature come back in a position to consider any veto override. In even-numbered years, the legislature coming back is the newly elected one, making veto overrides impossible as it’s a new session. In odd-numbered years, the monthslong separation from vetoes typically allows the frustration to dissipate. Even if legislators are still annoyed, there’s just no tradition of veto overrides, and no pressure for them in the famously politically disengaged state.
The bigger issue is a structural lack of interest in defending legislative work. The California legislature is an extremely top-down place, where the leadership exercises strict control over events. It is mostly their prerogative to pursue a veto override, and they never do. Conversely, the rank and file, which is constantly turning over because of the state’s constrictive term limits, follows the game plan as a means for career advancement. Crossing your own party’s governor could have consequences in the next election.
The Prospect contacted the offices of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire about whether they will consider scheduling veto overrides. They have yet to respond.
In my decade-plus of coverage of California politics I’ve never seen an outside group so much as call for a legislative veto override, even on bills that they have worked on for years. I contacted several of the more powerful outside groups for this story and asked if they’ve considered calling for a veto override. Nobody responded.
It’s hard not to be cynical about this. Handing over the last word on legislation to the governor, even when the legislature unanimously agrees, limits the scope of policy. If the governor ultimately decides whether a bill lives or dies, lawmakers can freely support a popular measure and lament the aftermath without doing anything about it. Constituents have no idea if a bill that could affect them is a real effort or playacting. By transferring more power to the governor, who runs statewide with unlimited campaign contributions, it heightens the influence of big money relative to a legislature that’s at least a little bit closer to the people.
Even moving forward on one veto override could change the power dynamic. The insulin co-pay cap, which never got a dissenting vote in its entire life span in the legislature, could serve as a test case. There’s no budgetary impact, it aligns with national Democratic priorities, the veto message is somewhat absurd—just because state manufacturing of insulin is coming in the indefinite future doesn’t mean patients should be denied relief in the short term—and the legislature showing a willingness to use its check on the process could change the way future governors think about vetoes.
California liberals can gawk at the inability of Republicans in Washington to even choose a leader to represent them in the House. But they have dysfunction in their own backyard, with a legislature that refuses to stand up and assert itself through the legal means of government procedure. If you cannot override the veto of a unanimous bill, at some level you’re unworthy of being a legislature.
