Fate of 1,200 Bills Lies With Deukmejian as Veto Deadline Nears

When legislators packed their bags and departed the Capitol on Sept. 1, they left behind a stack of 1,200 bills in the governor’s office. Disposing of this mass of legislation--either by signing or vetoing the measures--is a task now occupying Gov. George Deukmejian’s nearly every waking hour.

“I take the bills home, particularly on weekends and at night . . . but I don’t do them in bed,” Deukmejian said recently, alluding to an old story about how former Gov. Ronald Reagan used to sign bills in bed.

The bills range from the obscure--such as changing boundaries of a mosquito abatement district or legislating the time a personnel agency can hold tests for the position of gardener--to the substantial--such as catastrophic health insurance and anti-gang measures.

Sitting behind a desk piled high with bills, Deukmejian told a reporter that while he is satisfied with the outcome of most Administration-sponsored legislation, he is disappointed lawmakers took no action on bills to overhaul the heavily criticized worker’s compensation system or address the high cost of auto insurance.

“I think that there were a number of areas where the Legislature could have made some significant contributions but it didn’t necessarily work out this year,” Deukmejian said.

Deukmejian is known to be a governor who actually reads the bills in their entirety, unlike his predecessors, Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Ronald Reagan, who relied heavily on their staffs for advice on relatively routine legislation.

This, in large part, is a result of Deukmejian’s personality--he tends to be cautious, deliberate and patient. But he also was a legislator himself for 16 years and became accustomed to reading bills.

Just as the legislators raced against the clock to meet a constitutional deadline of midnight Aug. 31 for dealing with most bills, the governor now is fighting a Sept. 30deadline for acting on each measure. The governor has 30 days from the time he receives each bill to decide whether to sign or veto it.

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that final action on the bulk of the bills came, as it usually does, during the last days before adjournment. In all, the Legislature passed 1,900 bills this year, with about two-thirds of those sent to the governor as the session was winding to a close.

Much of this legislation, however, deals with narrow subjects or makes technical changes to the law that may have little effect on the vast majority of Californians.

“There are probably not more than a dozen (or) two dozen of these bills that the public will have any idea of what they do and what they are,” Deukmejian’s Chief of Staff Michael Frost said. “A lot of the bills that come down here are not important bills to the public as a whole. . . . They may be important to some individual somewhere or some specific interest group, but they are not bills that are major public policy issues for California.”

Frost added that legislators “get into issues like that because they just have nothing else to do, I guess.”

Regardless of subject matter or relative importance, each bill must go through the same process. Long before most bills have reached the governor’s office, his staff has tracked their progress through committee hearings and floor votes.

Once off the floor, the governor’s staff places each bill in a folder containing all reports, statements of support and opposition and written recommendations to the governor. Moving through a maze from the deputy legislative secretary to the legislative secretary to the chief of staff, the folder must wind up on the governor’s desk in time for him to review it by the deadline.

The bills go first to Bob Williams, who has held the job of deputy legislative secretary for 25 years--a period that spanned the administrations of Deukmejian, Reagan and both Browns, Jerry and his father Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.

“I came here one day not quite knowing why . . . and I never left,” quipped Williams, who plans to retire at the end of this year.

Surrounded by dozens of boxes containing bills, Williams finds himself working seven days a week, 12 to 13 hours a day during the month of September. He and his staff of 10 will sort through thousands of pieces of mail sent in support of, or in opposition to, the bills. For example, on a park district bill sponsored by Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville), Williams said he has received between 40,000 to 50,000 cards regarding the bill.

“Every year you will have a bill or two that evokes a great deal of mail and phone calls,” Williams said. “Organizations will call . . . and try to hit us with 400 or 500 calls on one day on one bill.”

After Williams completes his report, he sends the folder to the legislative secretary, Allan S. Zaremberg. Unlike Williams, Zaremberg does not check what is in the file, but looks instead for information that is not there. Zaremberg adds documentation to the file, writes another recommendation for the governor and passes it along the line to the chief of staff.

Frost will review the bills coming from Zaremberg’s office at a rate of about 60 to 70 a day. “I’m just the last stop before the bills go to the governor,” Frost said.

Frost said he usually agrees with Zaremberg’s recommendation, but will recommend a veto if the bill is not consistent with the Administration’s agenda.

Deukmejian often boasts of the number of bills he has vetoed. In fact, he has used his veto power far more than either Jerry Brown or Reagan. Yet, only about 10% to 15% of the measures that reach his desk fail to gain his signature, according to Frost.

But Frost said he will sometimes recommend a veto even on bills that sail through the Legislature with no negative votes because, “the fact is, a lot of those bills, the Legislature never looked at.”

As for those bills that always seem to fly off the floors of both houses in the hectic last hours of the session, Frost had an ominous warning: “Our philosophy is ‘when in doubt, veto.’ ”

With the approach of the Sept. 30 deadline, Deukmejian has cut back his public schedule and, except for attending some Republican political events, is devoting himself almost exclusively to the tedious bill-signing task.

“He’s obviously a busy man,” Frost said of his boss. “He has better things to do than sign bills.”