According to the California State Senate, liberal California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has a veto rate of approximately 12.34%. That’s over 11 percentage points higher than Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper, who this session vetoed a paltry one percent of bills that came across his desk. Can we please stop calling Hick a moderate now? Of course, that’s better than last session when he vetoed nothing. Nada. Zilch. Here are some numbers for you:
- 426 – the number of bills or resolutions that made it to the Governor’s desk for signature
- 273 – the number of bills from the House
- 153 – the number of bills from the Senate
- Three – the number of Senate bills Hick vetoed
- Two – the number of House bills Hick vetoed
- One – the number of bills in which Hick neither signed nor vetoed, and so it became a law automatically
So, which bills were the sacrificial lambs in the name of Hick attempting to show some kind of spine or leadership? Perhaps the highest profile bill that Hick vetoed was the Transportation Enterprise Transparency Act, otherwise known as the bill that Democrats introduced to distance themselves from the debacle of a controversial agreement around U.S. 36. to widen, build toll lanes, and maintain the roads for the next 50 years. Many saw the deal as lacking in transparency (because it was). The others? Well, let’s put it this way – nothing surprising.
We’re not saying that Hick should veto bills for the sake of vetoing, but really, he couldn’t find more than 1% of legislation with which to disagree? We can’t think of anyone with whom we agree 99% of the time. Oh wait, we do have a good example – when Sen. Mark Udall voted with President Obama’s agenda 99% of the time. Except in this case, Obama sets the agenda and Udall laps it up. In Colorado, the out of control, liberal controlled state legislature sets the agenda and our state’s chief executive rubber stamps it. Could Hick be a worse leader than Obama? Is that even possible?