SACRAMENTO – Late Wednesday, the California Chamber of Commerce and three former governors filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ability to control spending by reducing or eliminating appropriations through the veto power.

The California Taxpayers' Association and the California Business Roundtable also signed onto the brief.

The brief was filed in response to a legal challenge brought against the governor in the wake of last year’s budget crisis.

At issue is whether the Legislature may through a single bill make selective and multi-item appropriations but deprive the governor of his constitutional ability to control spending by selectively reducing or eliminating appropriations through the power to line-item veto. In July, Gov. Schwarzenegger was faced with the need to veto certain appropriations in order to cut spending.

CalChamber argues in its brief:

Legislative attempts to circumvent the Governor’s veto authority are not new, and the courts have rejected these ploys.

The supreme executive power of the state is vested in the Governor. The Governor is responsible for the administration of state government for the benefit of its citizens. One of the most important functions of a governor is to control state spending. The line item-veto is an essential tool in carrying out that function.

Under the guise of a fiscal crisis, the petitioners have invented a theory out of whole cloth to deprive governors of the authority that has been conferred on them by the California Constitution since 1922.

Neutering a governor during a fiscal crisis is irresponsible, particularly when such action is not supported by logic, reason or law. Checks and balances are what keep democratic governments functioning through the good times and bad.

If by simple wordsmithing the legislative branch can create an omnibus spending bill limiting the governor’s oversight only to a veto of the entire bill, then the budgetary process is reduced to a game of “chicken” daring a governor to bring state government to a halt through a veto.

The novel and legally unsupportable theory which petitioners advance is not limited to the current fiscal crisis.

If the petitioners prevail in their theory, absent a constitutional amendment, there will be no constraints on the Legislature to pass multi-item appropriations on a majority basis on the theory they are not appropriations subjects to a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and, for the same reason, are outside a governor’s line-item veto authority.