SACRAMENTO (AP) _ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t win many friends in the Legislature this year, setting a modern-day record for the highest veto rate by a California governor.

Schwarzenegger had signed 771 bills and vetoed 415, or 35 percent, by the time the bill-signing period ended Tuesday night.

That’s the highest veto rate of any governor since the Legislature began meeting full time 40 years ago, according to records kept by the Senate Local Government Committee.

Democratic Gov. Gray Davis held the previous record when he vetoed nearly 25 percent of lawmakers’ bills in 2000.

In most of his veto messages, Schwarzenegger said he was signing only the highest-priority legislation because the record-long budget impasse didn’t leave him time to properly review all the bills.

Asked during a Tuesday news conference whether he was punishing the Legislature, the Republican governor said he was not “into that at all.”

“We look at the bills in a very serious way and some bills, like I said, get vetoed and some bills will pass and I will sign,” Schwarzenegger said. “It’s just the normal process that we always go through.”

Spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor’s office had only 11 days after the budget was signed to review bills. He said the process usually takes 30 days.

Just one bill remains — a trailer that is part of the state budget — and must be acted upon by midnight Wednesday.

While Schwarzenegger set a record for his rate of vetoes, he did not veto the most bills. That distinction belongs to former Gov. George Deukmejian, a Republican, who vetoed 436 bills in 1990 — or 20.3 percent of those that came across his desk that year.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed the fewest bills — 30 in 1982.