Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The Governator and His Secret Message to the California Assembly and Senate

According to numerous reports last week, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger included a secret message, Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds-style, into a memo to the California Assembly and Senate.

Seems that the Assembly and Senate unanimously approved Assembly Bill 1176 to help the port of San Francisco with financing issues. Schwarzenegger decided to veto the legislation, sending a letter to the state Assembly chastising them for focusing on “unnecessary bills.” And check out the little secret message he included:
















The Wall Street Journal provides more context, making this even more amusing:

Earlier this month, the Republican governor crashed a San Francisco Democratic Party fund-raiser, where he was booed by Democrats still upset at the spending cuts he pushed this year. One attendee, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, yelled “You lie!” at him, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Then, Ammiano, a former standup comedian who is famous in San Francisco for his championing of liberal causes and gay rights, walked out on the speech, shouting a vulgarity.

Schwarzenegger has said he was unfazed by the incident.

Four days later, Assembly Bill 1176, which just happened to be sponsored by Ammiano, reached his desk. The bill would have expanded the financing powers of the Port of San Francisco. The state legislature didn’t have a problem with it; it cleared the Senate 40-0 and the Assembly 78-0.

Nonetheless, the former tough-talking “Terminator” star vetoed the bill, sending along a message.


...When asked about the intent of the message, Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said that “like every veto message, it says why the governor vetoed the bill.”

Okay. What about the other message in the letter?

“As far as what it says on the left-hand margin, that’s just a strange coincidence,” McLear said. “When you do so many vetoes, that’s bound to happen.”

1 comment:

VoxMoose said...

And they have us CA state workers furloughed while they goof off like this (which is basically a 10% pay cut for faculty). It's downright irritating.