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Fact check: Did Gary Johnson issue 750 vetoes as governor of New Mexico?
January 27, 2016
By Charles Aull
Seven hundred fifty. That’s the number of bills that Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson claims to have vetoed during his tenure as governor of New Mexico. In his 2012 book, Seven Principles of Good Government, he states, “Although I do not believe that government is ill-intentioned, I strongly believe in less government. I vetoed 750 bills as governor because I abhor the government spending money on programs that show no improvement in our lives and criminalize actions that do not warrant criminalization.”[1] Johnson has reiterated this claim about vetoes since declaring his candidacy for president earlier this month.[2]
We thought that 750 vetoes sounded like an exceptionally high number for a two-term governor, but our research shows that it's mostly accurate. We combed through New Mexico's legislative records and came up with a total of 739 vetoes—and that doesn’t include line-item vetoes applied to appropriations measures.
Gary Johnson’s vetoes
Gary Johnson served as the Republican governor of New Mexico from January 1995 to January 2003. He switched his affiliation to the Libertarian Party in 2011, shortly after announcing his candidacy for president. As the Libertarian Party nominee in 2012, Johnson received about 1.2 million votes in the presidential election, roughly 1 percent of the electorate. He announced his intentions to make a second run for the presidency, again as a Libertarian Party candidate, on January 6, 2016.[3]
To fact check Johnson’s claim about vetoes, we turned to two resources: the New Mexico State Legislature’s online database and the state’s legislative librarian, whom we contacted by phone. We limited the scope of our search to full executive vetoes, including pocket vetoes (when a governor declines to sign a bill) but excluding line-item vetoes (when the governor vetoes a specific line in a piece of legislation). The governor of New Mexico only has the authority to use the line-item veto on appropriations measures, and Johnson has stated before that he does not count these types of vetoes among his 750. “Those 750 vetoes didn't include line-item vetoes in state budgets, which I raised to an art form," he wrote in Seven Principles of Good Government.[4][1]
So what did our research turn up? A search through the state legislature’s online database turned up a total of 539 vetoes. The database, however, only goes as far back as the 1996 legislative session.[5] Johnson’s tenure, on the other hand, began in January 1995. To get data on that year, we had to contact New Mexico’s legislative librarian, who looked through the legislature’s print archives and informed us that Johnson vetoed 200 bills during the first year of his first term.[6] Added up, that comes to 739, just a few vetoes shy of 750. If we included line-item vetoes, that number would rise to almost 800.
Throughout the entirety of Johnson’s tenure, Democrats held majorities in the New Mexico State Senate and New Mexico House of Representatives. This could, at least in part, explain why he vetoed such a high number of bills. Johnson's vetoes covered a wide range of different legislative proposals, including, for example, state funding for new museums, additional municipal judges in New Mexico cities, amendments to state liquor laws and a request for funding to cover "interim and pre-session expenses of the legislature."
Johnson compared to other governors
Is 739 vetoes all that unusual? We stopped short of comparing Johnson to the governors of the other 49 states, but based on a few quick comparisons, that number does seem to be quite high—though it's not the highest. We checked Johnson’s record against those of five other governors from the past two decades who, like Johnson, served two terms and dealt with legislatures that were dominated by a party different from their own.
We found that in Oklahoma, Republican Frank Keating, whose tenure overlapped almost exactly with Johnson’s, vetoed a total of 302 bills.[7] John Kitzhaber, the former Democratic governor of Oregon, vetoed more than 200 bills during his first two terms from 1995 to 2003.[8] Republican Linda Lingle vetoed almost 350 bills as Hawaii’s governor from 2003 to 2010.[9] Like Johnson, all three of these governors worked alongside legislatures controlled by a party different from their own and all three had reputations for using their veto pens; but none of them come anywhere close to the number of vetoes Johnson issued in New Mexico.
Two governors that we found with more vetoes than Johnson were California governors Pete Wilson (1991 to 1999) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003 to 2011). Both were Republicans who worked alongside legislatures with Democratic majorities. Wilson vetoed 1,890 bills, while Schwarzenegger vetoed 1,970 bills.[10] California has a full-time legislature, which, on average, sent roughly 1,411 bills per year to Wilson and 1,065 per year to Schwarzenegger.[11] New Mexico, by contrast, has a part-time legislature, which sent an average of only 380 bills to Johnson each year he was in office.[5]
Conclusion
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson has stated on several occasions that as governor of New Mexico he vetoed 750 bills, a number that he has used to underscore his philosophy of limited government. With the help of the New Mexico Legislature’s online database and the state’s legislative librarian, we found that this claim is mostly accurate. In total, Johnson issued 739 full vetoes.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
Sources and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Johnson, Gary. (2012). Seven Principles of Good Government. Aberdeen: Silver Lake Publishing. (pages 27-28)
- ↑ Facebook page of Gary Johnson, "Who is Gov. Gary Johnson?" January 15, 2016
- ↑ Reason.com, "Gary Johnson To Announce He's Running for President Today," January 6, 2016
- ↑ National Governors Association, "The Governors: Powers," accessed January 25, 2016
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 New Mexico Legislature, "Session Locator," accessed January 25, 2016
- ↑ Phone conversation with the New Mexico Legislative Library on January 22, 2016
- ↑ Oklahoma Watchdog, "Why did OK Gov. Fallin flex her veto muscle?" May 7, 2014
- ↑ Oregon Live, "No more 'Dr. No,' as Gov. John Kitzhaber vetoes but a single bill," August 4, 2011
- ↑ Hawaii State Legislature, "Archives," accessed January 25, 2016
- ↑ We were unable to determine how many of these vetoes were line-item vetoes, though the percentage is likely insignificant in this context since California governors, as in New Mexico, may only use line-item vetoes on appropriations measures.
- ↑ California Senate Office of Research, “How often do governors say no?” October 1, 2014
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