US: California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to legalise same-sex marriage or raise the minimum wage in vetoes on Thursday that killed a spate of Democratic-backed labour and consumer protection bills.
On a day when the governor rejected 52 bills, he discarded proposals that would have helped consumers buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
He refused to expand punishments for employers that flout minimum wage laws, pay women less than men or resist paying workers' compensation claims.
In vetoing the bill to legalise gay marriage, the governor said he believed gay couples were "entitled to full protection under the law, and should not be discriminated against". However, he said the bill would have wrongly reversed an initiative California voters approved five years ago.
The bill's proposer, Assemblyman Mark Leno, accused Mr Schwarzenegger of "hiding behind the fig leaf" of a 2000 ballot measure, Proposition 22, which declares that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California".
More than 61 per cent of California voters approved the measure. Recent polls, however, suggest that voters are now evenly divided on the issue.
The governor won praise from gay marriage opponents, who called Mr Leno's bill an illegal attempt to circumvent Proposition 22. "The governor really had no choice because signing it would itself be an illegal act," said Andrew Pugno, a Sacramento lawyer representing the groups that backed Proposition 22. - (LA Times-Washington Post service)