With 600 bills to consider, Gov. Jerry Brown gets persuasion from all corners
By Steven Harmon
Bay Area News Group
Posted: 09/17/2011 11:24:56 PM PDT
SACRAMENTO -- Once Gov. Jerry Brown gets through the massive stack of bills on his desk, a wave of disenchantment is likely to wash over the Capitol.
He made sure legislators were girded for disappointment when he warned that many would be "singing the veto blues" over the next three weeks as the governor takes action on 600 bills they sent him in the closing days of the legislative session.
"I have to say to some, 'Fasten your seat belt, 'cause this is going to be a rough ride,' " Brown told reporters last week. "They've given me 600 bills and there's not 600 problems that we need those solutions for."
Brown on Friday handed down his first veto, killing the Democratic-led Legislature's effort to re-evaluate year-end "trigger" cuts already built into the state's precarious budget plan.
Still, even if he vetoes a quarter of the bills -- former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's standard -- Brown would sign more than 450.
It's a fact of life at this time of year: Thousands of individuals and interest groups are in a mad scramble to make one final appeal to the governor before he affixes his signature to a bill or at the end of a veto message. He will likely be facing heat until the Oct. 9 deadline when all bills must be either signed, vetoed or allowed to become law without his signature.
"There's a lot of pressure on a governor's staff to meet with constituents and different groups who want to make their argument," said Adam Mendelsohn, communications director for Schwarzenegger.
Cautious maneuvering
In his third term as governor, the famously unpredictable Brown has already shown a flair for going his own way, even on legislation that members of his own party -- and the labor groups that back it -- expected he'd support. In late June, Brown vetoed legislation that would have made it easier for farmworkers to unionize, despite loud demonstrations held by farmworkers outside his Capitol office.
Still, the governor must be cautious not to alienate his base, while at the same time keeping the wider electorate in mind as he eyes an election next year on tax increases, which he says are needed to prevent more severe cuts.
On bills that don't have a particular partisan tilt, it isn't clear whether the loudest voice or the one with the most campaign money to offer will have particular influence over Brown.
"He's not completely immune to being swayed," said Bruce Cain, director of the UC Washington Center in Washington, D.C. "He is interested in the merits of an argument. But he's also interested in doing what he perceives to be what the public wants."
One woman's fight
One test will come with a bill, SB 791, that would require physicians to inform female patients who have extreme breast density, a condition that masks signs of breast cancer in mammograms.
Amy Colton doesn't have big-bucks lobbying firepower behind her, but on Friday she made her case for the bill with Brown's office.
"This is so out of my realm -- I don't know how this works," Colton said before her meeting.
A registered nurse from Soquel, Colton, through the bill's author, Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, has waged a lengthy campaign for the legislation after her harrowing experience with her own doctor, who never told her she had the condition until she had late-stage breast cancer.
Colton and a core group of supporters are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media to gather momentum for the bill.
"I know the opponents have been actively lobbying the governor's office," Colton said. "I know they have wealth and power, and I'm just me."
Colton is up against the California Medical Association. Along with a long list of medical providers, the group has lobbied heavily to kill the bill, which they say will create unnecessary panic among patients, many of whom can't afford more expensive tests such as ultrasounds or MRIs.
"Our goal is the same -- to continue to highlight that there isn't enough evidence showing additional screenings save more lives," said CMA spokeswoman Molly Weedn.
The CMA contributed more than $12,000 to Brown's 2010 campaign and nearly $200,000 to the state Democratic Party in the last election cycle -- the traditional route to political influence.
Calling in backup
Opponents of a bill to ban shark fin soup, AB 376, have enlisted the support of old political hands to press their cause. Pius Lee, the co-chairman of the Chinatown Neighborhood Association, asked Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and Assembly speaker, and former state Court of Appeal Justice Harry Low, a legend in the Chinese community, to intervene.
Ex-Mayor Brown was quoted in a Chinese-language newspaper as calling the bill discriminatory. Whether he has tried to make a discreet personal appeal to Gov. Brown is unclear; Willie Brown did not return calls. Low, who served under the governor's father as a deputy attorney general and later was appointed to the appellate court by Jerry Brown, sent a letter imploring him to veto the shark fin soup bill, saying it had a "distinct tone of discrimination against California Chinese-Americans reminiscent of early anti-Chinese legislation."
"Gov. Brown is a good friend of the Chinese community," Lee said. "He always protects the minority against discrimination."
Brown, of course, is hearing from the other side, too. The Asian Pacific American Ocean Harmony Alliance produced 25,000 signatures in an online petition to the governor to support the shark fin ban, which they say is necessary to halt the slide in the shark population. Thirty environmental groups have contacted the governor's office.
At an end-of-session reception Brown hosted for legislators last week, the Chinese-American co-author of the bill, Assemblyman Paul Fong, D-Mountain View, received a sign that his bill would, at the least, be given thoughtful consideration by Brown.
"He asked me if it was my bill," Fong said. "That's a good sign, that he knew about it.
"All the emails show a lot of people support the ban," so the bill's fate may depend on how much sway Willie Brown and Low have with the governor, Fong added.
"But he seems to be very independent -- makes up his own mind," Fong said. "I think he'll look at the bill on its merits."
In the pile
Here are some of the more significant bills that Gov. Jerry Brown must consider through Oct. 9, the deadline to sign or veto legislation:
AB 101: Allows unions to organize child care providers who work from home.
AB 131: The California Dream Act, which would allow undocumented residents to apply for state college aid.
AB 144: Prohibits most people from openly carrying an unloaded gun in a public place.
AB 155: Gives online retail giant Amazon one year before it must begin paying sales taxes, unless Congress comes up with a federal law before July 30.
AB 183: Prohibits grocery stores from selling beer, wine or liquor using self-checkout lanes.
AB 900, SB 292, SB 226: Streamlines the California Environmental Quality Act's (CEQA) judicial reviews, limiting challenges to projects such as one to build a football stadium in Los Angeles and urban housing.
SB 161: Allows volunteers to administer epilepsy drugs to public school students.
SB 202: Requires ballot initiatives to be placed on the November ballot.
SB 617: Regulatory changes that would have an economic impact of more than $50 million on California businesses would be subjected to added scrutiny by state agencies.
SB 676: Allows farmers in four Central Valley counties (Imperial, Kern, Kings and San Joaquin) to grow industrial hemp.
SB 946: Requires health plans to cover certain autism therapy for children.
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