by Todd Haggerty
State budgets are never easy to pass. This year enacting state fiscal policies is proving to be especially difficult due to legislative-executive conflicts. Governors don’t often veto entire state budgets, but this year four chief executives have rejected fiscal year (FY) 2012 budgets passed by their legislatures. This has set the stage for high profile brinksmanship between legislative and executive branches.
Last November, voters in California approved Proposition 25, which replaced the super-majority requirement to pass the budget with a simple majority. The super-majority requirement was often cited as a major cause for California’s late budgets. On June 15, the California Legislature approved the FY 2012 budget, sending the bill to Governor Jerry Brown. Gov. Brown quickly issued the first full-budget veto in California since 1901. This is an in-party fight, as Democrats control both branches.
Prop. 25 also contains language that legislators must forfeit their pay if they do not pass the budget by midnight on June 15. The California State Controller ruled yesterday that the budget passed by the Legislature was not balanced and thus legislators will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is passed.
In Iowa, Governor Terry Branstad (R) vetoed the budget on April 12, 2011. One of the issues Senate majority Democrats and Gov. Branstad are at odds over is the budget calendar itself. Gov. Branstad is insisting upon a biennial budget for the state. Senate Democrats fear that a switch to biennial budgeting will result in the loss of legislative control over the budget. The latest Iowa has ever enacted the budget was June 26, 1992 (then Gov. Branstad’s third term).
Minnesota lawmakers passed the state biennial budget on May 23, 2011 with Republican control in both chambers. Unhappy with the Legislatures plan to balance the budget, Governor Mark Dayton (D) vetoed the 9 budget bills the very next day. Minnesota faced a similar situation in 2005 when the state experienced its first shutdown its history. However, in 2005 more pieces of the FY 2006 budget were in place by the start of the fiscal year. If an agreement is not reached this year, the impacts of a shutdown could be far greater.
Finally, in North Carolina, Gov. Beverly Perdue (D) vetoed the first budget in North Carolina state history. Governors in North Carolina received veto authority in 1997. The House and Senate, under Republican control, overrode the veto a few days later, setting another historic first.
For more information please see the following NCSL resources:
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