Assembly Speaker Karen Bass

The Issue: Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (Democrat from Los Angeles) has been raising clout over the idea of overriding the 415 vetoes issued by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last week.  Feeling that Schwarzenegger did not give adequate review to at least 136 of the vetoes that were given a generic veto message, Bass plans to call for an override of every bill that passed through the legislature by at least a two-thirds vote in each house.

Karen Bass recently wrote about her opinions on the Governor’s vetoes on The California Progress Report.  From her article:

Of the Governor’s record 435 vetoes, there are more than 130 bills that the governor didn’t even bother to give the courtesy of consideration to. These bills got a boilerplate veto from the governor claiming there wasn’t enough time to prioritize them because of the delay in passing our state budget. Funny, it was the governor himself who said “don’t send me any bills until there is a budget.” Then he uses that as an excuse for vetoing bills. Those vetoes included solid bipartisan bills, including several where the governor and his staff have been directly involved for months – and at least one bill his own administration sponsored.

This discussion of overriding as many vetoes as possible is an attempt at a power grab against Governor Schwarzenegger and the Republican Party.  With election season around the corner, the California Democratic Party is increasingly close to reaching a two-thirds majority of seats in both houses of the Legislature.  If they reach it, they can pass a budget without concern for Republican needs and can override any veto from a Republican Governor.  By making Schwarzenegger look bad immediately before the November election, it might help Democratic candidates receive support from the 20% of Californians who decline to state a political party.

I understand that Karen Bass wants the best for her party, but this practice of spite and retaliation that seems to be coming as we near the end of the election cycle isn’t healthy for California.  The ones who suffer while this continues on are the people of California.

For the sake of the California People, the Democratic Leadership needs to bury their pride and work toward an effective, reform year in 2009.  To Bass’s credit, she mentioned moving forward in her comments as well:

I’m willing to look past all this and hope we can see a new start. Part of that should involve the new bipartisan blue-ribbon commission I’ve been pursuing to look at tax modernization and two year budgeting and other potential solutions to California’s chronic fiscal crises. The governor has been supportive of that effort, and it’s a good place for us to move forward from.