Long post, so be prepared.
Well, I just learned why veto overrides never happen in California despite a Democratic supermajority in both houses, and it makes me mad. The simplified reasons:
1) A spiteful governor can retaliate by vetoing future bills (especially those passed without a veto-proof majority), and legislators are too scared to rock the boat
2) Like (1), but the retaliation is the governor directing the office responsible for determining the cost of the bill to artificially inflate the projected cost, making it harder to get support to pass it
3) Legislators sometimes want to signal support for bills while not actually wanting them to pass, so they let the governor soak up the blame
This has meant that the legislature has not overridden a veto in ~30 years, and ultimately has abdicated a large chunk of their constitutionally assigned duties. Other governments, such as the State of New York, have similar issues; but unlike NY, CA actually has a way to fix this.
California allows ballot initiatives that do not need to be approved by the legislature or governor, unlike some other jurisdictions. This is necessary because despite the current veto dynamic being entirely harmful to the constituents, and at times harmful to both the legislature and the governor, both of the latter two groups find it too useful to change. So how would a ballot measure fix the problem? I propose that a constitutional initiative be put on the ballot to immediately pass into law without an opportunity for a veto any bill which has passed through the legislature with a veto-proof majority. This would eliminate both problems, preventing a spiteful governor from having an opportunity to be spiteful while simultaneously forcing legislators to go on the record about bills they secretly oppose.
One potential problem with this that I can foresee is that said spiteful governor might preemptively give an unofficial veto, and threaten to punish legislatures which pass the bill (especially by a veto-proof majority) by applying methods (1) and (2) to bills which remain able to be vetoed; but this still protects against (3), and even brings it into conflict with (1) and (2) by still forcing legislators to go on the record.
I do not live in California, so maybe someone who lives there should start the process for getting this on the ballot. While you're at it, maybe try to get your state legislators elected by multi-member STV instead of the single-member district system currently employed.
Thoughts?
#USpol #CApol (that's California, not Canada) #California #Newsom #Veto #ConstitutionalAmendment #Democracy
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