Governor Must Implement the Law

By Rep. Kirk Caldwell - Majority Leader


Now that the override session is over, the legislative process is complete, and we call on the Governor to do what the executive branch is constitutionally mandated to do -- implement the law.

It is our opinion, as well as the opinion of our legal counsel, that the bills the Governor vetoed are not technically or fatally flawed. We did not approach the special session with the mindset that we would override for the sake of overriding to show political muscle. House leadership set specific criteria to determine whether a vetoed bill rose to the level of being overridden, and we discussed each bill thoroughly in our caucuses, as did the Senate. When the House and Senate came together, our two override lists were very similar even though we had discussed the overrides independently. Here are the criteria we used:

• The bill, on third or final reading in each house, should have been passed by at least a two-thirds vote.
• The bill, as much as possible, should not include a general fund appropriation.
• The bill promotes at least one of the following public purposes of major signficance: public safety, public health, and working class protection. Subsequently, in working with the Senate, we added environmental protection/planning and technology to this criteria.

While we probably would have had the votes to override most of the bills on the Governor's potential veto list, we do respect the power of the Governor to veto, and we are willing to work with the administration to resolve differences on certain bills. We will not, however, negotiate with the Governor through the media, as she tried to do at the last minute by claiming that we were uncooperative. That is not statesmanlike, nor does it result in good policy.