Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking bipartisan flak from state legislators who represent Amador County.

The state's recently passed "water package" is illegitimate because it was rammed through in the dead of night by means of several procedural violations and irregularities, according to State Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks), who called on Schwarzenegger to veto all bills in it.

"Two nights ago, I insisted that the Senate endure roll-call vote after roll-call vote in order to show just how many Senate and Joint Rules were being waived to advance the package of bills related to water," Cox wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger. "The Legislature did not just waive rules - it waived the process that exists to protect the public interest. The Senate waived the process that provides for the participation of all 40 Senators and the nearly one million people we each represent. In doing so, we abandoned transparency and accessibility. The same thing occurred in the Assembly."

District 10 Assemblywoman Alyson Huber (D-El Dorado Hills) on Monday hand-delivered some 2,000 postcards addressed by Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta residents to Schwarzenegger. Huber had already publicly blasted a "Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force" established in the package as an illegitimate end-run around the State Legislature on a canal project running the periphery of the Delta. Each of the messages voiced opposition to a peripheral canal, an idea that state voters defeated soundly in a 1982 ballot measure. The measure was widely viewed as a water grab of Northern California water by big-agriculture interests in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley.

"(Delta) residents will not stand aside while the governor and his Southern California water buddies bulldoze their way through the Delta," Huber said.

Cox spokeswoman Nghia Demovic said the Senate committees that should have heard the bills in the package are as follows:

- Appropriations

- Environmental Quality

- Natural Resources and Quality, and

- Local Government.

The bill-history document for SBX7 7, for example, shows that Article IV, Sec. 8(b), of the State Constitution was dispensed with and that, more than once, Senate Rule 29.3 was suspended.

Article IV, Sec. 8(b) reads, in part, "No bill may be passed unless it is read by title on three days in each house, except that the house may dispense with this requirement by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two thirds of the membership concurring. No bill may be passed until the bill with amendments has been printed and distributed to the members. No bill may be passed unless, by rollcall vote entered in the journal, a majority of the membership of each house concurs."

Senate Rule 29.3 bans voting on amendments that have not been in print for a full day. However, its suspension is not uncommon.

Huber's AB 13 7x would have blocked proposals to give Delta water authority to a group of unelected appointees by requiring a full analysis of a peripheral canal and legislative approval of such a project. The bill was killed without a hearing. Huber has said she plans to resubmit the bill in coming weeks.

Schwarzenegger's office did not respond to a call for comment.