Despite strong support from the education community and legislators, Governor Schwarzenegger chose to veto the College Textbook Affordability Act.
While
we are pleased that the Governor acknowledged the importance of lower textbook
prices, we are troubled by the reasons he gave for his
veto. In his veto message, the Governor said that
SB 832 "fails to recognize that
the affordability of textbooks is a shared responsibility among publishers,
college bookstores, and faculty
members."
Unfortunately, it appears that the Governor
fails to recognize the root cause of the problem at
hand. It has been clearly documented many times
over that the textbook market is a broken market. The person who orders the
book (faculty) is not the same person who buys the book (students). Therefore,
the cost of a textbook is not the primary factor during the purchasing process.
Publishers, cynically aware of the immense market power this gives them, respond
by withholding the price of textbooks. As has now been clearly documented by a rigorous study released by
CALPIRG, 77%
of faculty report that publishers rarely or never report the price of a book
during sales interactions.
SB 832 sought to correct this imbalance in the market by requiring
publishers to disclose the price of a book to professors up front. This is why the the
California Teachers Association, the University of California Student
Association, and the Faculty Association of
the California Community Colleges urged the Governor to sign SB 832. By not
doing so, the Governor failed to heed the research and recommendations of the
academic community and missed a simple and important opportunity to lower
textbook prices. We hope that over time, the Governor rethinks his position and
reconsiders similar efforts in the future.
For Governor Schwarzenegger's veto message: http://gov.ca.gov/pdf/press/2007bills/SB%20832%20Veto%20Message.pdf
