California Governor Jerry Brown cleared a mountain of legislation off his desk over the weekend ahead of a midnight Sunday deadline. Ben Adler reports from Sacramento on some of the bills he signed and vetoed.
Brown signed a bill that will give some juvenile murderers sentenced to life without the possibility of parole a chance at parole after all; a bill that bans a controversial form of therapy aimed at “turning gay people straight,” and one that will allow some undocumented immigrants to obtain California drivers licenses.
But the governor used his veto pen quite a bit over the weekend. He rejected a bill that would have mandated rest breaks and overtime pay for domestic workers such as babysitters; a bill that would have criminalized farmers who don’t provide enough shade and water to farm workers; and a bill that would have banned employers from discriminating against unemployed job applicants. In his veto message, he said the bill was amended in a way that could lead to “unnecessary confusion.”
Overall, the legislature sent Brown nearly a thousand bills in 2012. He vetoed 12 percent of them.