Committee recommends statutory clarity on governor vetoes and a process for reconvening

The Legislative Procedure and Arrangements Committee voted to forward draft statutory language to legislative management clarifying how governors must return vetoed legislation and establishing a process the assembly could use to reconvene to consider veto overrides. The proposal, presented by Emily Thompson of legislative counsel, aims to make explicit the required markings on a bill when the governor issues a full or partial veto, to identify where the governor must file any statement of objections, and to direct the secretary of state and the director of the legislative council on receiving and distributing those materials. Committee leaders said the drafts respond to uncertainty that arose after a recent veto in which the governor’s objection letter and the markings on the returned bill did not match. Thompson said the drafts are procedural, not substantive: they do not change how much time the governor has to veto bills, but specify that when the governor item-vetoes part of a bill, the governor must strike the vetoed language on the face of the bill and that, in the event of conflict between a strike-through on the bill and ambiguous language in the objection letter, the marked language on the bill controls. The draft also addresses post-adjournment procedures: when the Legislative Assembly is not in session and the governor issues vetoes within the constitutional post-adjournment window, the governor must still return the marked bill and statement of objections to the secretary of state and file a copy with the director of the legislative council or the director’s designee. The draft further directs legislative council to poll members about reconvening and provides options for how and when a reconvened veto-override session could be scheduled. Representative Lafore moved that the committee recommend the draft (document 27.0004.10) to legislative management; the motion carried. Committee members discussed alternatives such as setting a fixed reconvene date rather than using a membership poll and asked counsel to return with revised language based on today’s feedback. The committee instructed staff to refine the draft to reflect the group’s preference for clarifying procedures without altering constitutional authority and to present revised options at the next meeting for legislative management’s 90-day deadline.