A wrap: Brown eyed lowest number of bills since 1966

From the Senate Committee on Government and Finance comes handy information –and historical context — about the governor’s vetoes. Many thanks to Gayle Miller.

The following is an abstract. The complete rundown can be found here.

–Brown considered the lowest number of bills (870) of any Governor since the California Constitution was changed to disallow the pocket veto in 1966 (Proposition 1A).

–Brown vetoed a higher percentage in 2011 (14.36 percent) than any of his prior years as Governor.

–Brown’s veto percentage (14.36 percent) is only slightly above the average since 1967 (13.82 percent).

–Deukmejian and Schwarzenegger still hold the record for the most bills vetoed in a year, 436

(1990) and 414 (2008), respectively.

–2011 holds the fewest vetoed bills (125) since the recall year in 2003 (58).

–The five years with the lowest number of chaptered bills have all been since 2007.

–Between 1967 and 2002, the average number of bills considered by the Governor per year was 1,558. Since 2003, the average number of bills considered per year dropped to 1,033, a

33 percent decrease.

–Deukmejian vetoed the most bills (2,298 over eight years). However, with 1,970 vetoes over his seven years, Schwarzenegger (281) is close to Deukmejian’s average of 287 vetoes a year.

–Schwarzenegger vetoed over three times as many bills in his seven years (1,970) as Brown

did in his first eight years (528), and twice as many as Reagan did in eight years (843).

–In his five years, Davis vetoed twice as many bills (1,098) as Brown did in eight years (528).

–In 1982, Brown vetoed just 30 bills, setting the record for the lowest number of vetoes.

–The five years with the highest number of chaptered bills (bills that became law) were all with Republican governors (1971, 1984, 1967, 1990, 1988).