To paraphrase Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry in the 1973 movie classic Magnum Force, a governor learned his limitations.

There are limits to power, even of a governor with no major political opposition and a very friendly, usually cooperative legislature.

This time, Governor Gavin Newsom may have found his limits. Key legislators are pushing against his late-entry legislation to expedite construction of a highly controversial water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

As is his patron, Newsom tries to jam through the legislation at the last minute, denying lawmakers and the public enough time to review and discuss the proposal. That really ticks off legislators, whether they’re leaders or backbenchers.

It feels disrespectful to the [legislative] process, Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the governor’s proposal this month.

It is so inappropriate to push through such a controversial issue at the last minute, says Councilman Carlos Villapudua (D-Stockton).

Newsom did so last year and later bragged about his success in thwarting lawmakers. Towards the end of his two-year term, the governor sent the legislature an ambitious package of climate-fighting proposals, most of which were passed.

A governor can hinder legislators by their

own

Bill’s hostage. He could refuse to sign a bill drafted by a legislator who votes against his proposal. By waiting so long to send his bills to the legislature, a governor also significantly reduces the time opponents have to organize opposition.

This year, Newsom waited until May 19 to propose sketchy infrastructure legislation he called for

the law

legislators pass within five weeks as part of the annual state budget. What he proposed has nothing to do with the budget. But he can hold legislators’ pet budget posts hostage by their votes in favor of his proposal

Also, the governors’ legislation can be dumped into budget trailer bills that don’t need to be reviewed by policy committees.

Newsom proposed a massive package of 11 bills that would make it easier to build clean energy, transportation and water projects, including the Delta Tunnel.

It would essentially do this by cutting back on environmental protection. Lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 should be completed within 270 days unless a judge rules that this is infeasible. Now such lawsuits can drag on for years.

As for the tunnel, the vote needed for approval by a major delta oversight committee would be reduced. Protections for endangered wintering sandhill cranes would be relaxed. And the role of local interests in designing the tunnel would diminish, they fear.

For six decades, governors have tried to somehow build this project, but they have been beaten back by grassroots activists or state voters.

The delta is California’s most important water hub, serving 27 million people and irritating 3 million acres.

It’s the backbone of our state water system, says Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the State Natural Resources Agency. Were on borrowed time in the delta. It has a high vulnerability to salt water intrusion with the risk of sea rise due to climate change. And there is an earthquake risk.

We cannot be left in legal uncertainty year after year due to lawsuits. Let’s figure out how to streamline the lawsuit and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the tunnel.

And if the thumbs down, he says, the state can go back to the drawing board and take a different approach.

Opponents of the project, particularly delta residents, including farmers, argue that future salt water intrusion is one reason why the tunnel should not be built. It would siphon water from the fresher northern delta before it could flow through the more salty southern end, as it does now, and push back the salty water that pushes in from San Francisco Bay.

The saltier water would spell disaster for Stockton, smaller delta communities and agriculture, opponents say.

As for the earthquake threat, no earthquake has ever damaged a delta dike and there are no major fractures below the estuary. Anyway, can’t a big earthquake damage an underground tunnel?

The fishing industry and boaters fear that reducing freshwater flows through the delta will decimate salmon streams and exacerbate toxic algae that clog waterways in the summer.

The whole system has crashed for salmon, says Barry Nelson, a consultant for the Golden State Salmon Assn. That’s partly due to giant fish-munching pumps in the southern delta and government regulations that often deprive baby salmon of strong enough water currents when they try to migrate out to sea.

The tunnel would [state] to dramatically increase the pumping of the Sacramento River system and further reduce the salmon population, Nelson says.

That would depend on how the tunnel is regulated. But there is no confidence from government regulators among tunnel opponents.

Villapudua drafted a letter to Newsom and legislative leaders signed by 10 legislators from both parties

asking for a warning that they would oppose the gubernatorial package until the

tunnel project

is

be removed

from the governor’s package.

It wasn’t very wise to involve the delta, says Senator John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), a former Secretary of Natural Resources who

once

helped then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s failed twin tunnel project.

A $16 billion project [the tunnel] is likely to have a significant impact on a large, environmentally sensitive and important area. Something of that magnitude should not be accelerated by an environmental assessment process.

Yes The cost: Pretty much everyone knows that the price of that 45-mile, 39-foot-wide tunnel would be much more than advertised. And so far there is not even funding for it. Water users would pay.

Newsom should listen to Dirty Harry.