It’s not quite up there with Schwarzenegger’s celebrated “fuck you” to Tom Ammiano, but Gov. Jerry Brown gets off a halfway decent zinger in a signing statement attached to his approval of Senate Bill 769, which legalizes the display of taxidermified cougar carcasses. The legislation passed both houses of the legislature unanimously.
To members of the California State Senate:
I am signing SB 769 which allows for a dead mountain lion to be stuffed and displayed.
This presumably important bill earned overwhelming support by both Republicans and Democrats.
If only that same energetic bipartisan spirit could be applied to creating clean energy jobs and ending tax laws that send jobs out of state.
Sincerely,
Edmund G. Brown
Presumably the governor was appalled that the bill itself classifies legal dead-cougar shows as a matter of urgency and “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety”:
In order to allow the display, exhibition, or storage of mountain lion carcasses or parts or products thereof for a bona fide scientific or educational purpose as soon as possible, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately.
Right. With politicians habitually abusing the language to such a spectacular degree, even Brown’s world-weary snark is a refreshing corrective. Let’s all root for the continued growth of gubernatorial signing statements as a literary subgenre.
UPDATE! Via Redding madman Bruce Ross and his understudy, Ryan Sabalow, another Brown signing statement from earlier in the week. Go, Jerry, go!
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