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As anticipated, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last week that would have given increased notification to California high school students and parents of their right to block their contact information from going to military recruiters. 

In returning Assemblymember Sally Lieber’s (D-Mountain View) AB1778 “release of pupil records bill” without signature, Schwarzenegger wrote, “I believe that schools should maintain the flexibility to develop their own procedures to ensure compliance with state and federal laws without the state dictating how procedures are implemented.” 

The proposed law, which was co-sponsored by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) was a response to President George W. Bush’s federal No Child Left Behind Act, which contains a provision that local school districts must give military recruiters access to high school student contact information unless the student or the student’s parents sign a form requesting that the contact information be withheld. 

Proponents of the bill argued that notification of this right to “opt-out” of the military recruitment process is often overlooked by parents or students because it is buried in the back of student handbooks or included in the midst of large numbers of papers that school districts regularly send to parents. AB1778 would have required that the military “opt-out” notification be included on emergency notification cards, which parents must fill out each year and return to the school. 

Proponents argued that in school districts which included the military “opt-out” language in its emergency notification cards, the numbers of students and parents choosing to block contact information going to military recruiters rose dramatically. 

While the bill passed both the Assembly and the state Senate by wide margins, it never gained enough Republican support to overcome a gubernatorial veto.