When Governor Schwarzenegger signed the state budget into law last week he utilized the line-item veto to make nearly $500 million in horrific cuts from the budget.  Included in these cuts are $80 million from child welfare programs, $61 million from county funding to administer Medi-Cal, $52 million from AIDS prevention and treatment, $50 million from Healthy Families, the low-cost health insurance program for poor children; and $6.2 million more from parks which could close 100 of California’s 279 state parks.

He also eliminated funding for the California Conservation Corps, cut $16 million for domestic violence shelters and programs, slashed $50 million from services for developmentally delayed children under age 3, cut $6.3 million from programs for the aging, and eliminated funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development.

The Governor’s constitutional authority permits him only to “reduce or eliminate one or more items of appropriation” when signing legislation into law.  The aforementioned cuts were not for funds appropriated in this bill however.  The funds were appropriated in an earlier state budget passed in February of this year and therefore do not qualify as new appropriations.

Because these line-item vetoes were used inappropriately, they constitute an unconstitutional legislative act and are illegal and void.  Our state legislators should reconvene immediately and override the Governor’s vetoes.