Davis Gets Last Word, 362 Times

With a $14-billion budget surplus easing the way, Gov. Gray Davis and the year 2000 Legislature have finished their work on a more amicable note than their first, sometimes fractious session. The governor’s staff proved more adept at working with lawmakers as bills wound their way through the legislative process. Often, Davis helped by following through on his promise to give previously vetoed bills a second chance if they were modified to overcome his objections.

The Legislature adjourned Aug. 31, but the process carried on until last Saturday, the deadline for the governor to act on bills sent to his desk. The final scoreboard for 2000: 1,454 bills passed, 1,088 signed into law, 362 vetoed and four allowed to become law without Davis’ signature. This marked the highest percentage of vetoes in decades. The governor rejected more than $2 billion in spending and has approved $319 million since signing the annual budget, leaving an estimated reserve of $1.4 billion.

Davis has scored well in the past two years, from two budgets signed on time to new programs to improve the schools, new gun control laws and billions in tax relief. “Above all else, we kept faith with the people who elected us,” he said. For Davis, at least, that’s true. He ran as a centrist Democrat who was tightfisted, tough on crime and friendly to business.

Less happy were more liberal Democrats who tried to advance the agenda of organized labor. Labor certainly had its victories, but two major union goals were thwarted by Davis vetoes last week: increases in benefits for the unemployed and for those injured on the job. These are subjects the Legislature should pursue again next year, seeking a compromise with business that Davis can accept.

A regrettable veto was Davis’ rejection of a bill to limit the state’s take of local property taxes, revenue first seized by the state during the recession of the early 1990s. This was a modest but symbolically important bill that would have capped the shift of tax money so that cities and counties would receive the annual property tax increases being generated by the improved economy. The tortured fiscal relation- ship between the state and local government remains one of California’s worst problems.

Sometimes lawmakers and special interests reach too far. Such was the case with an urgently needed measure to improve living and working conditions for “backstretch” workers at race tracks; The Times had exposed the problem and Davis supported the call for reforms. But the measure was vetoed, appropriately, because the tracks sought to legalize betting via the Internet and telephone. The sponsors should have anticipated the veto, considering Davis’ sensitivity about expanding gambling in California. Try again next year, he said.

There are 120 members of the Legislature, but the governor always gets the last word. Often in 2000, that word was no.