Data on California Veto Overrides

Data on California Veto Overrides

With help from my friends, Alex Vassar and Brian Ebbert, in terms of the last successful bill veto overrides, those occurred in 1979.

The last successful veto override was in February 1980, which was a line-item (appropriation) veto override. The appropriation was contained in SB 190.

AB 580 (Lou Papan), which restricted the sale of insurance by bank holding companies, was the second bill veto override in 11 days in July 1979.

And that bill was the third time Gov. Brown had a veto overridden. Gov Brown’s prior veto override was in 1977 on a bill dealing with the death penalty.

The veto override earlier in July 1979 was on a bill granting state employees a retroactive pay increase.

The Legislature overrode 5 bill vetoes during the period from 1979 to 1957.

There have been no successful bill veto overrides since 1979, or in the past 45 years.

There were also a number of bill veto override attempts during Gov Reagan’s final term in office, with half of those passing the Assembly Floor, but failing in the Senate.

Interesting tidbit at the federal level: Since the founding of the federal government in 1789, 37 of 44 Presidents have exercised their veto authority a total of 2,572 times. Congress has overridden these vetoes on 110 occasions (4.3%). Presidents have vetoed 83 appropriations bills, and Congress has overridden 12 (14.5%) of these vetoes.

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