By The Associated Press
10.28.2009 11:54am EDT
(Sacramento, Calif.) Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger typically attaches a message to bills he signs or vetoes telling
lawmakers why he took the action.
Like a find-the-word puzzle, the
second message was visible by stringing together the first letter of each line
down the left-hand margin. It consisted of a common four-letter vulgarity followed
by the letters “y-o-u.” “My goodness. What a coincidence,”
said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear. “I suppose when you do so many
vetoes, something like this is bound to happen.” Schwarzenegger’s veto messages are
sent to the lawmakers who authored the bills, and posted on the governor’s Web
site. McLear noted that the left-hand margin of past veto messages has spelled
out words such as “poet” and “soap.” The target was San Francisco
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who had sponsored AB1176. The bill, which passed
unanimously in the Assembly and Senate, would have granted the Port of San
Francisco expanded financing power to redevelop a former shipyard into a new
neighborhood known as Pier 70. “Kudos to the governor for his
creative use of coincidence,” said Ammiano’s spokesman, Quintin Mecke. “You
certainly have to have a sense of humor in politics. Unfortunately, this humor
came at the cost of the Port of San Francisco.” Whether coincidence or smackdown,
the phrase contained in Schwarzenegger’s Oct. 12 veto message could be seen as
retaliation for Ammiano’s behavior during a local Democratic Party fundraiser
earlier this month in San Francisco. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, had
been invited to the event by former San Francisco mayor and Assembly speaker Willie
Brown, a Democrat. His appearance at the Fairmont
Hotel caught many of the attendees by surprise and came after a summer of
contentious budget negotiations that forced lawmakers to cut billions of
dollars from core state services, including education and health care programs. On a video clip of the governor’s
appearance, Ammiano can be heard shouting “you lie” and other derogatory
phrases as other attendees booed and heckled Schwarzenegger’s brief speech. After the governor left, Ammiano
took the stage and gave a rambling diatribe in which he criticized
Schwarzenegger for a wide variety of perceived offenses. In part, the freshman
lawmaker was upset that Schwarzenegger had vetoed bills in 2005 and 2007 that
would have legalized gay marriage. The governor has said the issue
should be decided by voters or the state Supreme Court. Schwarzenegger also
opposed Proposition 8, the initiative voters passed in November to ban same-sex
marriage. Of the eight Ammiano bills sent to
the governor’s desk this year, Schwarzenegger vetoed six – five of them after
the Oct. 7 heckling incident. Mecke, Ammiano’s spokesman, said
the lawmaker wants to move on. “We will call it even and start
with a clean slate with the governor from here on out,” he said.