SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown may have signed a bill allowing dead mountain lions to be stuffed and mounted, but he wasn't going to let it go without some sarcasm and a touch of wistfulness.
Not when he noticed that members of both parties had eagerly backed Senate Bill 769, after Brown struggled in vain to get bipartisan unity on a jobs package that would have raised taxes on out-of-state corporations to give tax credits to California businesses -- as well as a bill that would have continued a long-established utility fee to fund clean energy research.
"This presumably important bill earned overwhelming support by both Republicans and Democrats," the governor wrote in his signing message. "If only that same energetic bipartisan spirit could be applied to creating clean energy jobs and ending tax laws that send jobs out of state."
After signing 25 bills and vetoing two Friday, Brown has now signed 101 bills and vetoed 10 since the legislative session ended three weeks ago. That's a far cry from the vow he made earlier that he would disappoint a lot of legislators with an unprecedented number of rejection slips.
But they may still come: He has until Oct. 9 to make judgment on the approximately 500 bills that remain on his desk.
The governor continued to accompany his vetoes with pithy rebukes.
He chastened Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Los Angeles, for a bill that would have granted an exemption to a law that requires insurance
salespeople to notify seniors in writing 24 hours in advance of selling policies at the seniors' homes.The bill, Senate Bill 590, created that exemption for the sale of funeral and burial insurance policies.
"I see no compelling reason to take this protection away from seniors," Brown wrote, pointedly adding that the bill was sponsored by the American Bankers Insurance Co.
In another veto, Brown knocked back a bill, SB671, that would have required court reporters to take continuing-education courses in order to renew their licenses.
"The whole idea of legally mandated 'continuing education' is suspect in my mind," Brown wrote. "Professionals already are motivated to hone their skills -- or risk not getting business. Requiring them to pay fees for 'continuing education providers' is an unwarranted burden."
One bill that Brown presumably signed with relish, SB194, saved $315,000 by combining into a single omnibus bill 18 changes made to state laws affecting local agencies.
In 2010, the Legislature approved 20 such changes in a single bill for a savings of $350,000.
Bills cost $17,500 each, according to SB194's legislative analyst.
Brown announced he had signed 13 bills designed to protect senior citizens, including one, AB332, which increases the fine from $1,000 to $2,500 for misdemeanor theft, embezzlement, forgery, fraud and identity theft valued at more than $950 against an elder or dependent adult.
Fines for felony crimes against the elderly were increased to a maximum of $10,000.
Under AB1293, prosecuting agencies can now forfeit the property of a person suspected of embezzling from or defrauding an elderly victim after one instance of $100,000 or more. Current law allows forfeiture only after repeated instances.
Under AB313, residential facilities for the elderly are now required to warn residents that the home's license could be revoked to provide them time to find another home.
Other legislation signed by Brown:
