I could be wrong, but I don’t believe Gov. Kulongoski has threatened to veto any bills from the past legislative session—that is, any bills that actually made it through both Dem-controlled houses. Today, though, he issued “Notices of Possible Intent to Veto” on a handful of bills.

The “notice of possible intent” bit is required by state law to be given five days or more before vetoing any bill, and doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to issue any vetoes (but, seriously, who’d go through the trouble of issuing a “notice of possible intent to maybe consider thinking about vetoing” a bill if they weren’t going to do it?).

At issue is Senate Bill 1039, which creates a “Committee on Performance Excellence” to monitor state agencies. Putting aside the Orwellian creepiness of something called the “Committee on Performance Excellence,” Kulongoski’s objection apparently has nothing to do with measuring performance; his spokesperson says he’s all for performance measures (and, no, that’s NOT what I’m talking about, so stop your giggling).

Instead, he sees it as a violation of constitutional separation of powers. The legislature is establishing a committee to oversee state agencies, which are part of the executive branch. In lay terms, they’re getting their legislative spatulas all up in his executive kitchen.

He’s also considering a veto of two budget items. One concerns ongoing funding for OMSI—Kulongoski wants the $4.6 million that goes from energy companies to the Department of Energy to OMSI to come directly out of the general fund instead. The other redirects $9 million from 9-1-1 centers to the Oregon Wireless
Interoperability Network, which is attempting to align all of the law enforcement agencies in the state—technologically speaking.

Apparently, if the governor does choose to veto these bills in five days or longer, he’ll be sending out an explanation—assuming it’s interesting, we’ll have more on these then.