Can Vetoed Bills Be Overridden in the Second Year of Session?

Now that the California Legislature has concluded its 2026 Session, and Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to act on all of the bills that reached his Desk this year, are vetoed bills considered by legislators in the second and final year of the biennial session?

Article IV, Section 10(a) of the California Constitution states, in part, “The Governor may veto it by returning it with any objections to the house of origin, which shall enter the objections in the journal and proceed to reconsider it. If each house then passes the bill by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring, it becomes a statute.”

As a result of these constitutional provisions, the Governor has discretion whether to sign or veto a bill presented to him/her by the Legislature. Likewise, the Legislature can decide whether to vote to override a veto. It “proceed[s] to reconsider it” by considering the Governor’s vetoes in the Assembly and Senate Daily Files for a specified time period. The act is discretionary (“if each house…”) whether the Senate, Assembly, or both houses will consider a gubernatorial veto.

But we also need to be aware of Article IV, Section 3(a), which provides: “The Legislature shall convene in regular session at noon on the first Monday in December of each even-numbered year and each house shall immediately organize. Each session of the Legislature shall adjourn sine die by operation of the Constitution at midnight on November 30 of the following even-numbered year.

Section 3(a) informs us that the biennial session concludes on November 30 of the second, or even-numbered year, of the Legislative Session. That means there can be no action taken by that legislative body, and the new session begins days later on the first Monday of the following month. As a result, once the 2025-26 Legislative Session adjourns sine die on November 30, 2026, the opportunity for the Legislature to consider any gubernatorial veto from the 2026 Session ends. If not overridden before then, the veto is sustained. As a result, the answer to the question posed above is generally no.