Reason for veto: Costs hundreds of millions of dollars and impairs new medical procedures and biomedical-research development.
DRIVERS' LICENSES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Author: State Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles)
Purpose of the bill: AB 60 would have permitted immigrants to obtain a driver's license, as long as they were residents of California and in the process of becoming citizens, had passed criminal-background checks, and had federal taxpayer numbers. When Davis vetoed similar legislation last year, he said he would revisit the issue if law-enforcement concerns were met. Latino politicians accused Davis of breaking his promise.
Reason for veto: Permits people with outstanding warrants, including murderers and people wanted for espionage and treason, to get a drivers' license.
HYPODERMIC NEEDLES
Author: State Senator John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara)
Purpose of the bill: SB 1785 would have allowed pharmacists to sell up to 30 hypodermic needles to adults without a doctor's prescription. The law now requires a prescription to buy syringes. AIDS activists said the legislation would have reduced the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and other infectious diseases at no cost to taxpayers by permitting drug addicts to purchase clean needles.
Reason for veto: Undermines local control of needle-exchange programs and could increase the number of contaminated needles and syringes in public areas.
PUBLIC-INFORMATION REQUESTS
Author: State Assemblyman Kevin Shelley (D-San Francisco)
Purpose of the bill: AB 822 would have punished publicagencies that illegally deny the public access to public records. For the third year running, Davis rejected a plan to have the state attorney general review denials of requests for government records and pay those denied $100 for each day a record was improperly withheld.
Reason for veto: Sets up a conflict for the Attorney General's Office, which now must defend agencies that break the state Public Records Act.
PROTECTION FOR GOVERNMENT ATTORNEYS
Author: State Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento)
Purpose of the bill: AB 363 stems from the case of state Department of Insurance attorney รค Cindy Ossias, who disclosed documents two years ago to a legislative committee looking into alleged wrongdoing by former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. At the time, Quackenbush attempted to fire Ossias, and the State Bar investigated her for violating client-confidentiality rules. She was cleared by the bar and given back her job by interim Commissioner Harry Low. The legislation would have sheltered government attorneys from professional discipline and the loss of their license for divulging clients' confidential information. Other public employees who expose wrongdoings are already protected from workplace retaliation.
Reason for veto: Davis wrote that "our legal system depends on the fundamental duty of confidentiality owed by lawyers to their clients."
INCREASING DOCTORS' PAY FOR TREATING THE POOR
Author: State Senator Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno)
Purpose of the bill: SB 1644 would have increased state pay to doctors and dentists who treat patients in communities serving a high number of Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Poochigian said the Central Valley lacks adequate health-care services for the poor because of low pay for the doctors who treat them. A study examining the relationship between Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and access to care would have been undertaken.
Reason for veto: Other medical providers would want money, too.
WORKPLACE RACE AND GENDER NUMBERS
Author: State Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles)
Purpose of the bill: AB 1309 would have forced businesses and labor groups with 100 or more employees or members to annually submit diversity reports on race and gender to the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The reports would be available to the public so people could determine how well a community's composition was reflected. This would help workers who suspected discrimination in the hiring process.
Reason for veto: Records should be confidential.
CREATING A MENTAL-HEALTH COMMISSION
Author: State Assemblywoman Helen Thomson (D-Davis)
Purpose of the bill: AB 1422 would have established the California Mental Health Advocacy Commission with the goal of improving access to mental-health services and combating any discrimination associated with mental illness.
Reason for veto: State Department of Mental Health already stretched too thin.
CREATING AN OFFICE OF HOMELESSNESS
Author: State Senate Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco)
Purpose of the bill: SB 1654 would have placed a state Office of Homelessness in the Governor's Office, charged with coordinating services to the homeless, identifying gaps in the delivery of services and making annual recommendations for improving homeless services.
Reason for veto: Annual operating cost of $500,000 too high.
PROTECTION OF FARM WORKERS
Author: State Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno)
Purpose of the bill: AB 325 would have prohibited farmers and labor contractors from charging workers fees to cash paychecks and to ride in vans to the fields.
Reason for veto: Impractical to ask an employer not to charge a fee for cashing a paycheck.
INTERNET-SERVICE RULES
Author: State Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno)
Purpose of the bill: AB 1814 would have required Internet service providers to give consumers 30-day advance warning before terminating their service.
Reason for veto: Fails to allow for circumstances in which the disruption of service is outside a provider's control.
PATERNITY FRAUD
Author: State Assemblyman Rod Wright (D-Los Angeles)
Purpose of the bill: AB 2240 would have helped men who, after failing to contest an order to pay child support, learn through DNA tests that they could not have fathered the child.
Reason for veto: Might interfere with federal funding.
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