Did Schwarzenegger Cross the Constitutional Line?

Before the storm broke over the resignation of LAPD Chief Bill Bratton,) there was another storm brewing in the state capitol about whether Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger exceeded his vested authority with his recent line item budget vetoes.

I have been wondering the same thing. Last week several democratic legislators and advocacy groups did more than wonder. They got legal opinions.

One of the first to bring his lawyer into the mix was assembly member John A. Pérez, the Democratic Caucus Chair. Here is part of what he wrote to the Caucus about the opinion he got back from attorney Stephan Kaufman: (His and the attorney’s full letters are here):

Members I am writing to inform you that I have sought legal counsel to render an analysis on the actions Governor Schwarzenegger has taken with his blue-pencil. Preliminary analysis from my attorney is that the vetoes appear to have exceeded the Governor’s authority under Article IV, Section 10 of the California Constitution. In short the Governor’s vetoes exceed the authority granted under the California Constitution. The Governor has clearly violated his authority and the constitution.

I want to be clear, not only are his actions heartless, but more importantly his actions are illegal.

Yesterday the LA Times ran an editorial that also questioned those line item vetoes and today they have a full blown news article on the challenges, plus the response from Arnold’s own lawyer, who counters that the governor’s vetoes were perfectly legal.

Here are some clips from the LAT editorial:

….Schwarzenegger’s blue-penciling amounts to something beyond run-of-the mill line-item vetoes. It raises troubling questions about the power and purview of the governor and about whether he can take for himself some of the authority to impose midyear spending cuts that he has tried, and failed, to win at the ballot box. California needs to know the answers.

Remember that the Legislature passed, and the governor signed, a budget in February. That spending plan proved insufficient after voters rejected a May 19 tax-and-reform package and as revenue fell well short of earlier projections. But the February budget was in place, with appropriations adopted by the constitutionally required two-thirds supermajority.

Last month, lawmakers sent Schwarzenegger a package of appropriations and cuts, and no one disputes the governor’s power to veto any of the appropriations. But he also vetoed some of the cuts, not to reject them but to deepen them — to, in effect, use the opportunity presented by the Legislature’s majority-vote cuts to reopen appropriations that the Legislature made, and that he signed, in February. But if an appropriation requires a two-thirds vote, and if a cut is adopted on a simple majority, how can it be deemed an appropriation?

Good question. Or is it instead, a violation of separation of powers.

Former state senator Sheila Kuehl put up her own essay last night with details of the governor’s draconian line item cuts, and what she thinks of the way their legality. (Answer: nothing good.)

Remember, these were his own blue-pencil cuts, never agreed to or heard by any legislator. In many cases, these were the services that an exhausted Sen. Steinberg and Speaker Bass were convinced they had saved earlier in the week.

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Many in the Capitol are of the opinion that the Governor broke faith with the Democratic leadership, who believed they had protected the most vulnerable from further devastation. Trust is definitely out the window.

Look for this issue not to go away.