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SALT LAKE CITY — State lawmakers won't override any of the three bills Gov. Gary Herbert vetoed from the most recent legislative session.
Polls conducted in the Utah House and Senate came up well short of the two-thirds majority needed for an override session. The House voted 40-34 against, while the Senate voted 21-8 against the session.
Although legislative leaders say they disagree with some of the governor's final policy choices, the few remaining issues can be worked out later.
"The House of Representatives feels that the issues at hand can be addressed in the next general session. We appreciate that the governor evaluated and agreed with 99.5 percent of the legislation we passed this year,” according to House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo.
Legislators passed 468 bills during the 45-day session that ended last month.
Herbert vetoed three bills, including one of the pieces of legislation stemming from the House investigation into former Attorney General John Swallow.
HB414, which would have given the Legislature power to enforce subpoenas, was "a little bit of an overreaction" to the problems experienced by a House special committee investigating Swallow, the governor said. The measure called for challenges to legislative subpoenas to be made before a legislative committee, not the courts, and created criminal penalties for not complying.
Herbert also vetoed SB257, which would have expanded the responsibilities of a parents panel to include the review of complaints related to instructional materials and curriculum.
The other bill vetoed by the governor was HB102, which would have put a moratorium on creating new special assessment areas but had the unintended effect of blocking six natural gas projects in rural areas of the state.