Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger jetted to China on Monday to help promote an event dear to his wife’s family, taking a four-day break from the special legislative session that he called to address California’s healthcare and water problems and leaving more than 600 bills awaiting action on his desk according to the Los Angeles Times.
The governor, who is scheduled to return Thursday night, has two weeks to sign or veto the measures and is prohibited by the state Constitution from acting on them while he is out of the state.
Schwarzenegger announced his trip a day before flying to Shanghai for the summer games of the Special Olympics, a nonprofit that benefits the disabled.
He broke the news Sunday morning in a live satellite speech to a conference of Britain’s Conservative Party in London, an event he had initially planned to attend as keynote speaker.
He canceled that trip in late August. Schwarzenegger also postponed a trip to India that was scheduled for this fall, citing his effort to forge a deal on healthcare, his biggest stated goal for the year.
On Sunday, he told the Conservatives: “I’m very sorry that I could not join you in person, but as you probably know by now, I’m in the middle of a special session of the Legislature that I called. . . . Because of that, I had to cancel all travel, except a long-term promise to attend the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China, which is this coming week. Now this is an organization that my mother-in-law started.”
But in fact, Schwarzenegger traveled to New York last week to speak at the United Nations about global warming, then went to Sonora, Mexico, on Thursday and Friday for a conference of the Border Governors Assn., a group he will lead as chairman for the next year. He flew to his Los Angeles home Thursday night to celebrate his son’s 10th birthday.
Schwarzenegger made the trip to China by private jet, and five aides flew separately via commercial airline. Spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor was paying for his own travel, and the details of who would pay the travel expenses of his aides were still being worked out.
Read it here: Schwarzenegger Leaves Town