Holden explains miscue on signed bills later vetoed

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Accidents happen, even in the governor's office.

Of course, a mistake at the highest level of state government can have more of an impact than one further down the government chain.

It recently came to light that back in July, Gov. Bob Holden mistakenly signed into law two bills he planned to veto but corrected the error after appealing to the secretary of state's office for a reprieve.

Some observers raised concerns that once a bill is signed by the governor, it does in fact become law. Holden's office didn't see it that way.

Holden maintains that his intent was to reject the bills. Thus, even though he initially signed them, the bills never received the constitutionally required approval of the governor. Given that, Holden said he could legally retrieve the signed bills, then veto them.

In an interview with The Associated Press last week, Holden explained what went wrong and how a similar situation would be avoided in the future.

Essentially, staff incorrectly placed two bills in a stack of other bills he was signing. Holden then signed the back of the bills without realizing that he had intended to veto them.

"The two bills got in there inadvertently, it was a clerical error, they just got put in the wrong pile," Holden said. "We contacted the secretary of state's office and felt that was the appropriate action to be taken."

Holden said Missourians should not be concerned that he was not reading what he signs.

"I was reading all the bills," Holden said. "We had looked at them and I had made a decision" previously to veto them, Holden said. But while signing the bills, "you don't look at the whole bill, you look at the back page."

The bills, in this case, were not controversial. And Holden and his staff had more than 200 to review.

One bill relaxed standards for out-of-state physical therapists and another dealt with effective dates for bills vetoed by the governor and overridden by the Legislature.

The question now is: What has been done to correct the problem?

"What we have to do is make sure everybody double-checks their work before it gets to me," Holden said.

Some have not been so forgiving of Holden.

The Sikeston Standard Democrat newspaper said in an editorial that Holden's "mistake was just plain dumb."