Gov. Perry: It's not a real session until he's over-ruled the legislators

If getting your bills killed by Gov. Rick Perry is a badge of honor, then the Travis County delegation walked out of last night’s veto bloodbath as four star generals.

Between them, Sens. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Kirk Watson, D-Austin, and Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, lost two bills a piece in Perry’s veto list (Watson also lost another two he sponsored, while Wentworth lost one).

Perry used his veto to kill a total of 37 pieces of legislation passed by the 81st legislature (in addition, he let nine pieces of legislation slide by without signature) and took $289 million out of the budget. That’s down from his 2007 total of 52 bills and $646.5 million.

We’ll have more analysis over the weekend, but here’s some early headline numbers:

Total body count:

House Bills: 20

Senate Bills: 14

Resolutions: 3

By author and sponsor party affiliation:

Democrat bills: 14

Republican bills: 6

Bipartisan: 17

(Democrat Author, Republican Sponsor, 13: Republican Author, Democrat Sponsor 4)

By author’s home city:

Austin: 4

Dallas: 0

Fort Worth: 3

Houston: 9

McAllen: 4

San Antonio: 4

(one each: Angleton, Arlington, Brenham, College Station, Euless, Galveston, La Porte, New Braunfels, Pampa, Paris, Waco, Weslaco, Wichita Falls.)

This article appears in June 19 • 2009.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.