Writer’s Cramp

When the California Legislature adjourned early in the morning of Sept. 16, the exhausted lawmakers got to go home and pretty much forget about legislation until January. But down at the governor’s office, the work was just cranking up.

Gov. George Deukmejian had less than two weeks in which to act on hundreds of bills passed by the Legislature in the rush to adjournment. In fact, 60% of all the bills passed this year went through in the final 10 days of the session. That is not the sort of pressure-cooker in which a governor should be forced to work.

There is no problem at the conclusion of the second year of the Legislature’s two-year session, when the governor has 30 days to act on bills. At the end of the first year, however, he has only 12 days from the point at which the completed legislation reaches his desk. Deukmejian joked about the chore: “In all, I signed or vetoed 1,741 bills this year and when you have to sign a name as long as mine, that can take a long time.”

He also asked for voter support of a constitutional amendment on next June’s ballot that would give the governor 30 days in which to act on bills passed before recess of the first year of the two-year session.

The gubernatorial review is critical to the legislative process, and particularly following the end-of-session frenzy when bills are almost literally pasted together following midnight negotiations. The governor’s office is the last place to catch drafting errors or to spot onerous special- interest legislation that might have sneaked through the Legislature.