There are a multitude of problems with Prop 13. You won't have to read this site very long to learn my opinion on that 1978 initiative. However, one of the long-term consequences of the measure, that perhaps was not really envisioned, has been away from all accountability on behalf of elected leaders.
Republicans simply throw their hands up in the air in public, saying the Democrats control the legislature. Meanwhile, in private, they are making up wish lists of stuff they want. For their part, the Democrats say that they can't act because of the supermajority rules. Now, that might be reduced with the new majority vote budget measure, but when we need to raise revenue, that doesn't really matter all that much. In the end, everybody has an excuse for why stuff doesn't happen.
But, that is really a problematic situation. And instead of decisive leadership, we get elected officials who defer to the people, because they/we are the only legislative body that doesn't need a supermajority. In his column today, George Skelton decries this notion that somehow our elected leaders aren't up to the task of solving our budget issues.
The governor, with legislative help, has the power to stop the bleeding and the weeping. Too bad he's trying to abdicate it to voters.
Despite what he says, Brown is big enough for the job and capable of making the hard choices. And that's what "we the people" expect. (LA Times)
Now, while saying this, he also blames unions for not compromising on the GOP demands and says there are a few "sensible" Republicans willing to bargain for other reforms. Now, as I mentioned earlier today, that's not what the budget process is for. It's not designed to reform CEQA or our greenhouse gas pollution regulations, it should be about the budget.
Fortunately, Skelton brought in legal counsel to explain the sitch, UC-Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky:
"We elect representatives to make the laws," (Chemerinsky) said. "It should be their responsibility to act in the best interests of the voters. If the voters don't like what they do, they can be voted out of office."
"It is unnecessary and undesirable to go to the voters," added Chemerinsky, who worries particularly about a small turnout in a special election and potentially poor prospects for passage of the tax extension.
"The idea of cutting another $12 billion would be truly devastating to the state of California. And it's the responsibility of the governor and Legislature to protect us from that."
It is a broken system, and one where nobody takes responsibility. I don't know how that changes anything in the short term. But in the long-term can we really continue to have these same anti-democratic fights every year?
In a state ruled by direct democracy in many ways, George Skelton's column might be something close to seditious speech:
All that said, "check-ins" with the voters are what regular elections are about. The way our republican system of democracy was set up by the framers of both the U.S. and California constitutions, the people elect representatives to make decisions about spending and taxes.
You didn't see either the Clinton tax increases or the Bush tax cuts being put to votes of the American people. That occurred at the next elections, when the people voted whether to rehire their representatives.
Only in screwy California, where we have an out-of-control initiative system and a bloated Constitution that Sacramento often stumbles over when it does try to make decisions, do voters perpetually get handed such policy-making power. (LA Times)
Here's the situation we face. We have a state of 37 million voters. At most 10 million of them turn out to vote on any regular basis, or less than a third. Now care to guess how many of these people spent more than 5 minutes researching the issues they are going to vote on?
This is why we moved away from an Athenian-style direct democracy to a representative democracy. Our American founding fathers understood that not every voter had the capacity to take everything into context to make the decisions we expect of our legislators. You could argue that the information age has brought the knowledge necessary closer to the people, but in the end, uninformed voters are making decisions without all of the facts.
Even in a state of 1 million people the system would be impractical, here it's downright unworkable. Skelton takes Brown to task for boxing himself into the corner, but really, it was something of an electoral practicality. He may have won without it, but it sure made it a lot easier. But, here we are, in a position where Brown is now forced to bring this to the voters instead of just doing his job and making the decisions for the state with the Legislature.
Of course, Skelton goes on to throughly lambaste the Republican caucus for being pretty much worthless and waste of taxpayer money. (It's true!) But the real point here, is that while this is where we are headed in the short term, it is ultimately unsustainable to continue to run of the world's largest economies by plebiscite.
In a Broder-esque column over the weekend, George Skelton took a little of this, a little of that, and a little Capitol craziness, and jammed them all together. If you get beyond his Capitol story time of arm wrestling, you see that there are some very real concerns that are being glossed over. In a discussion of Medical co-pays, this is very concerning
Maybe the $50 and $100 co-pays are a bit excessive for people living in poverty, officially defined at $10,800 a year for individuals and $14,600 for couples. But some co-pays are warranted. (LAT)
Except, as Anthony Wright later points out. It isn't just the $5, for which Skelton dramatically underestimates the value of the money to those on MediCal, but the incentives. If we start requiring these co-pays, it deters people from seeing the doctor early, and encourages them to wait until they can no longer ignore the problem. This is a perverse incentive.
But Skelton gets to the point of choices. More specifically, that we are making extreme choices simply by sticking with the status quo. If we allow the corporate tax break from 2009 to set in, we are looking at $1.8 billion disappearing. And that makes the MediCal payments look like chump change:
Schwarzenegger had the right idea in January but since then has abandoned it. If things got bleak enough, he said then, the state should postpone roughly $1.8 billion in corporate tax breaks scheduled to begin in July.
Things are certifiably bleak. ... {T}hey certainly shouldn't take effect this July. Some things just make sense, regardless of which party you're tied to.
We must understand that bumbling along is, in fact, making a choice. Let's offer Californians a real choice, provide the state the services that we expect and require, and let the chips fall where they may.
At first I thought that the headline writer was confused. "California tax reform plan much too bold for Capitol," it said above George Skelton's column today. "Too bold" could maybe have more than one meaning. Surely Skelton wasn't throwing in with the idea that massively shifting the tax burden to the lowest income levels in society was too good an idea. But I think that is, in fact, what he's saying.
"I would sign it immediately" if it were a bill, Schwarzenegger told reporters. "Without any doubt."
Of course, this is a governor who constantly seeks out things new and bold. And the tax proposal was all of that -- much too new and bold for most Capitol denizens, especially those representing special interests.
As Genest told me: "It shouldn't come as any surprise that lobbyists in Sacramento are in favor of maintaining the status quo unless they are confident that the change will serve their interests. That's why they're called 'special interests.' "
Nowhere in Skelton's article does he quote any figures or statistics citing the practical effect of the Parsky Commission's plans. He doesn't mention that, under the plan, taxpayers making over $1 million dollars a year would save $109,000 annually on average, while taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 would save four bucks. He doesn't mention that the proposal would result in a net loss of revenue to the state, causing wider budget deficits. He does manage to mention critiques of the business net receipt tax from the side of business and industry, but offers no critiques from the opposite end, a la Jean Ross' statement that "You could not say, 'We're going to tax child care so we can lower the income tax on millionaires.' But that's what this does." The fact that the BNRT would hit business payrolls and disproportionately tax companies in the knowledge economy rather than the service economy also doesn't make it in. Skelton never mentions that, by taxing all businesses in the state, the BNRT would effectively tax rents.
He just says it's "too bold."
The Parsky Commission was practically designed to shift wealth upward. It should surprise nobody that this is what it ended up doing. That is bold, but not in the way that Skelton means it, I don't think.
He does give voice to where Karen Bass may steer the debate:
Bass was holding her tongue, trying not to express disappointment in the commission. When she first proposed its creation, the speaker envisioned the panel proposing something more practical and simple: reducing the sales tax rate and spreading it to currently untaxed services.
She promised a "thorough and objective public review" of the panel's recommendations.
Good idea, but don't stop there.
"My biggest message to dysfunctional Sacramento is to get something done," Parsky says. "If you've got a better idea, get it done."
There's no question that flattening and broadening the sales tax base is a decent enough idea. Under the constraints of minority rule, it may be the best one lawmakers can get, and it would prove popular if enacted. We'll see if the Parksy Commission report is dumped in favor of that.
The two-thirds rule is not used merely to protect taxpayers from politicians trying to reach deeper into their pockets. It's used by special interests -- mainly big business -- to game the system; a tool handy for legislative leverage, or extortion. If you don't give us what we want, we'll withhold the votes needed for the two-thirds.
It's about buying and selling. Last Friday, at the all-night windup of this year's regular legislative session, Democrats weren't in a buying mood.
This is what happened, according to Democrats, and Republicans aren't exactly denying it: The Senate GOP blocked more than 20 bills requiring a two-thirds vote because Democrats wouldn't cave on three unrelated demands.
This has been true for years if not decades. The 2/3 rule does not protect tax increases, it's a tool for the Yacht Party to hijack the process. In this case, the GOP wanted to create a forced market for Intuit, makers of TurboTax; to increase the corporate tax breaks from the Februrary budget deal, in particular to help Chevron; and to make Roy Ashburn a lead author on a Democratic bill. See if you can find the word "tax increase" in there. But because the Democrats didn't much feel like giving out even more corporate welfare or fattening the pockets of Intuit, the Yacht Party revolted. And they knocked down 20 bills, including one that would keep domestic violence shelters open throughout the state (which is nothing more than homicide prevention) by shifting available funds, and another to allow the Treasurer more leeway to renegotiate with banks and save the state $850 million dollars.
These and the other bills, again, did not involve tax increases. They were taken up under urgency requirements (so the policy takes effect immediately) or other factors, like changes to the budget, which necessitate a 2/3 vote. And the Yacht Party routinely takes advantage of this, mainly out of spite and an attempt to leverage their votes to reward their corporate backers.
Ashburn candidly defends blocking the legislation: "This was an opportunity for Republicans to have some leverage." Concerning the merits of measures buried in the fallout: "The subject matter of bills at that point was secondary to what the [GOP] caucus had decided to do with them."
This is a pretty startling admission. But not one anybody wasn't aware of before now.
Skelton has deciphered the problem pretty clearly, and Democrats are well-positioned to highlight it and show the disaster of governance ushered in by the onerous 2/3 rules.
Whatever the beef, there could be wide, unintended damage to noncombatants. The Republican weapon was blatant abuse of the two-thirds majority vote requirement for passage of many bills.
The two-thirds rule is not used merely to protect taxpayers from politicians trying to reach deeper into their pockets. It's used by special interests -- mainly big business -- to game the system; a tool handy for legislative leverage, or extortion. If you don't give us what we want, we'll withhold the votes needed for the two-thirds. (LA Times 9/17/09)
See, that's the problem when you give a wide, expansive veto power to a minority. It's fundamentally unworkable. I'll make an analogy to my patent law days here. Sometimes a patent holder owns a patent on part of a device or process. They frequently try to expand the scope and power of that patent by contract and license to block other firms from using or selling something that isn't covered by the patent.
See the thing is with patents, when you do that, it's called an anti-trust violation. It's against the law. But with the supermajority in the Legislature, it's just par for the course.
Sen. Maldonado, quite possibly the loneliest Legislator, shunned by his own party and the Democrats, makes the theoretical argument.
"I was embarrassed," says Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, the only Republican to cross party lines and vote for the bills. "I said, 'I'm here to govern.' They wanted all three things or nothing.
"The two-thirds vote is a good tool when put in the hands of people who are reasonable, pragmatic and open-minded. But partisans use the two-thirds as a tool to hold up the Legislature.
And if wishes were unicorns, then we'd all live in Arnold's Fantasyland. But back here in the real world, this is how this is going to play out every time. A minority will wield its minority veto like a club and bash everybody over the head with it until they get their way. That's just the way it is.
The establishment in Sacramento has manned the barricades, battened down the hatches and gone on the offensive to prove their own worth. They sent their best man in the media, George Skelton, out to prove that no, despite your lying eyes, the California Legislature had a real banner year. After all, they managed to bring suffering to the lives of hundreds of thousands of state residents with consensus and bipartisan elan!
The current Legislature, regardless of Duvall and despite ideological polarization, has had a better year than it's getting credit for.
Its main accomplishment was keeping the state afloat amid a flood of red ink, created primarily by the toughest economic times since the Great Depression. OK, so it did use some bailing wire and chewing gum! The bills got paid, even if briefly with IOUs.
With great difficulty and pain -- at least for Democrats -- the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed programs by roughly $30 billion. They also struck a major blow against "auto-pilot" spending by permanently eliminating all automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments, except for K-12 schools. And they summoned enough courage to temporarily increase taxes by $12.5 billion.
In the end, they found a way to restore health insurance for 660,000 low-income kids.
The tax increases hit the more vulnerable elements of society disproportionately, of course. They actually found that way to restore children's health insurance by lowering industry taxes and increasing the co-pay and deductible burden on the low-income families themselves, while reducing the covered care. And anyone who adds cutting $30 billion in programs and eliminating COLA as an accomplishment is a bit of a social deviant. But there are probably no lengths to which Skelton will go to defend the palace walls from the rabble who think, based on the evidence, that the system is horribly broken.
Steve Maviglio wisely steers clear of the more horrific achievements of this year's Legislature, and offers a slightly more defensible outlook of the '09 Legislative session. Still, there's a lot unsaid:
Looking back, getting the measures on the May ballot was a significant early success that required 2/3 votes. And toward the end of the session, in addition to the renewable energy bill, Speaker Bass pushed through measures on childrens health and domestic violence that won broad bipartisan support. (The Speaker also got a standing ovation, and she appears to have strengthened her support in Caucus. Compare that to the ouster of the two Republican leaders).
Okay, so the grand water deal didn't get done. Big deal. Nothing like that has been done for a generation. Perhaps Senate President pro Tem Steinberg set the bar too high when he said he'd get it done. In any case, all parties agree that they got close and can pick up the pieces and get it finished in short order.
So for all those crying for major reforms, put it all into perspective. Sure, improvements could be made, and things could have been better, but this is not reason for drastic action. Far from it.
Of course, the renewable bill is veto bait, as are many of the other major bills pending the Governor's signature. And the domestic violence bill didn't pass the Senate, so, um, that doesn't count. The prison bill offered decent parole reforms but stopped well short of a real solution. Everyone keeps saying the water bill will happen but the two sides remain far apart, and the fact that they'll have to go into overtime to reconcile it kind of proves the point, no?
But Maviglio tips his hand with the line "this is not reason for drastic action." Of course he would say that. He's profited well from the status quo. Anything that messes with it could hurt him professionally, and what's more, could stop the endless blaming of outside factors to account for stunning failure.
There is no shame in stating that this was a failed legislative session. Just about everyone in California would agree with you, particularly the ones who are suffering the most from the destruction of social insurance caused by the most heartless cuts. Simply put, the Great Recession dominated legislative activity, and the conservative veto from various 2/3 requirements restricts the Legislature from fulfilling the expressed will of the people through their votes (NOTE: This does not only come into play with the budget; late last Friday Republicans blocked over 20 bills that required 2/3 votes for one reason or another, probably because they knew they could get away with it). That's not something to explain away, it's actually something to fight, every single day until the problem is rectified.
Skelton and Maviglio may want to tell themselves all is well, but the public knows better, and they're going to demand major structural change. Those who think that the Legislature can still be a force for good in the state can get aboard and provide the best ideas to break the supermajority gridlock and get the state moving again. Or they can defend their narrow interests. Their defense will fail, and it would be a shame not to see them on the right side of history.
George Skelton writes about some of the accomplishments on deck in the next week in the Legislature. Beyond the renewable energy standard, which would be a solid accomplishment, and water, which really is kind of an unknown, Skelton looks at the prison "reform" bill, where he is both right and wrong.
The goal is threefold: to reform a system that has the worst-in-the-nation recidivism rate -- 70% -- for inmates released from prison. To begin substantially reducing the overcrowded prison population before federal courts do, as they've threatened. And to save the $1.2-billion already slashed from the prison budget on paper, but not in reality.
There apparently will be no compromising with Republicans. They're having no part of it, playing the law-and-order card as they have for decades -- advocating long lockups but opposing any tax increases to pay for the bulging prisons [...]
One thing that's needed, he and other reformers contend, is more education, drug rehab and job training for inmates. Another is a better parole system. A scaled-down bill passed by the Assembly on Monday seeks to encourage the former and achieve the latter [...]
Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) are trying to restore much of the Senate version, which also included an independent commission to update California's sentencing structure. But their problem is Assembly Democrats. Some are scared of being portrayed as a crime softie by a future campaign opponent. Steinberg took a shot at them Tuesday.
"It's time to say, 'Come on,' " the Senate leader told reporters. "We have a law-and-order Republican governor who is willing to sign a comprehensive package with absolutely essential reforms that protects public safety. It's time to get real [...]
Steinberg and Bass may coax more votes from the skittish Democrats.
But if they can't, the good-time incentives and parole improvements alone would be worth passing. They'd mark substantial progress toward prison reform.
As I've said, the current bill is not a prison reform bill, but a parole reform bill. The education, treatment and job training encouraged is immediately undercut by the Governor's slashing of those programs as part of the deal. And the lack of an independent sentencing commission means that we're likely to see both increased sentencing laws and increases in the prison population continue, and we'll all be back here in 10-15 years.
That said, parole reform IS a key element. Changing the situation where 2/3 of the convicts returned to prison get sentences for technical parole violations is urgently needed. The Phillip Garrido case is an example of how increased case monitoring on the most serious offenders could have benefits for public safety. But it does not totally stand in for full reform. The sentencing commission goes hand-in-hand with fixing parole.
Sentencing commission: In other states, a sentencing commission looks at who is being sent to prison and for how long, and what sentences work best to lower reoffense rates. Sentences are based on the severity of the crime and the offender's prior record. Instead of a system driven by relatively low-level property and drug offenses, prison sentences are focused primarily on violent and career offenders. The result in other states is that fewer offenders go to state prison, but the offenders who do go to prison are serving longer. For lesser crimes, offenders go to county jail.
Skelton only touches on who's really to blame for our intransigence on prison reform - those allegedly fiscally responsible Republicans who refuse to bear the costs of their policy desires. They've joined the appeal of the federal judge order to reduce the population by 44,000 on the grounds that their beautiful minds tell them there's no problem in the system:
State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) said the judges had ignored the state's recent "huge investment" in spending on inmate healthcare, as well as statistics showing that California spends more on healthcare per prisoner, and has a lower mortality rate among them, than many other states.
"We believe there is constitutional care today," he said. "We believe there always has been."
If you want the long form of this lie, read Tom Harman. Either way, it's just not true. Inmates have died, around one a week, before a federal receiver was instituted. Republicans fought the implementation of investing in prison health care, and the continued presence of infirm prisoners based on draconian sentencing laws like three strikes can account for the increased costs. Republicans typically call for increased rehabilitation and treatment for offenders while cutting the funding. It's a shell game.
However, we are well beyond that at this point. We have a bill that needs only a majority vote. And Assembly Democrats are petrified of justifying votes they had no problem with as recently as 2007. By the way, opponents can go back to those votes too, and make the same mailers. You either can act like you have the courage of your convictions, or not. Ultimately, the people will pay the price.
State parks officials and nonprofit organizations scrambled Wednesday to find funding and possibly new corporate sponsors to keep as many as 100 parks and beaches open after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed an additional $6.2 million out of the state parks system [...]
State officials won't finalize a list of park closures until Labor Day and said they hope to see the parks reopened in one to two years.
"We are actively seeking anyone who can help us with these places, all of them jewels, at a time when people need them most," said state parks Director Ruth Coleman.
"There are many groups and corporations that will step up to the plate and try to help," said Elizabeth Goldstein, executive director of the California State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting state parks. "But it would be a mistake to think that these efforts will be sufficient to replace the public funds being extracted." [...]
The crisis also triggered debate over the kinds of recognition corporate sponsors could expect in return for helping to subsidize a state park.
"We're reaching out to all possible partners -- cities, counties, nonprofits, banks, corporations, newspapers, individuals -- who would be interested in helping us," said Roy Stearns, spokesman for the state parks department. "Maybe we can find agreements that don't alter, commercialize or degrade our state park system.
"For example, if Budweiser came forward with money for Malibu Beach State Park, we wouldn't change the name to Budweiser Beach," he said. "But why not put up a banner saying, 'This park is kept open by Budweiser' for as long as they continue helping us?
If this isn't a hop, skip and a jump to unique licensing agreements to sell products on site, I don't know what is.
The article makes pretty clear that, while state parks and beaches may not be financially self-sustaining, they generate major amounts of economic activity. In fact, over the past year, the system "is currently packed with the highest visitation rates ever recorded," according to the parks director. This leads to residual spending in the areas around parks and beaches, increased tourism, etc. The natural beauty of California is a major attraction throughout the world.
Thanks to Governor Hoover we must lock them up or turn to the private sector to sustain them.
All part of his plan.
...I want to also address George Skelton's complaint that progressives somehow made their bed by voting down the May 19 ballot measures and now they must lie in it. I'll ignore for the moment this major error in the piece, the assertion that "state revenue has been plummeting, down 13% in the last two years even with February's tax increases." (um, they didn't take effect until April, not over the "last two years") And I won't comment on his barely suppressed glee over eliminating cost-of-living adjustments for poor people on welfare.
Schwarzenegger and the Legislature were widely accused of scare tactics -- crying wolf -- when they warned about the consequences of voters rejecting the May ballot measures. The wolf just broke down the door.
So let's do Skelton's counterfactual. Let's envision a world where the ballot measures that impacted the bottom line passed.
Those were worth a little less than $6 billion.
The deficit was $26 billion.
$1 billion of those $6 billion were cuts to different programs. If a world where cuts to certain programs means we wouldn't feel cuts to other programs is a world you populate and exalt, I think you're alone.
The other $5 billion was dubious borrowing. The most contentious item in the budget, and the most likely to have been dropped in your counterfactual... was $5 billion in dubious borrowing, only to local governments.
So the consequences of voting down very unwise ballot measures was... what, exactly? Different cuts to vital services and different dubious borrowing?
(And of course, we'd have a permanent spending cap, rather than the political spending cap we have now thanks to the conservative veto.)
That wise Mr. Skelton intones that Prop. 1A is not "a sneaky trick to raise taxes." I agree. It's a sneaky trick to drown government in a bathtub.
We touched yesterday on this bigger concern about the lessons that may be learned from the special election battle. It is clear that those anti-tax forces on the right will take credit if the ballot measures, particularly 1A, are defeated, saying that this is proof that California has had enough and the vote signals the rise of the teabaggers. That actually would be a dangerous lesson, mainly because it's not true, and it's part and parcel of the vast disinformation around taxes that the cynical forces on the right spare no expense in delivering to the public.
Low-, not high-, income Californians pay the largest share of their income in state and local taxes. Here's an updated analysis of data we've blogged about before that takes into account the temporary tax increase included as part of the February budget agreement.
California is a moderate, not high, tax state when all state and local taxes and fees are taken into account. This results from the fact that California has moderately high state taxes, but low local property taxes due to the impact of Proposition 13 on local property tax collections.
High-income Californians aren't leaving the state due to higher taxes. In fact, the number of millionaire taxpayers is growing at a rate that far exceeds the increase in the number of personal income taxpayers as a whole.
Over the past 15 years, lawmakers have enacted tax cuts that will cost the state nearly $12 billion in 2008-09. That's a larger loss than the $11.0 billion 2009-10 temporary increase in state tax revenues included in the February budget agreement.
Moreover, while the tax increases included in the budget are all temporary, regardless of the outcome of the May election, the September 2008 and February 2009 budget agreements included massive corporate tax cuts that are permanent and that will reduce state revenues by approximately $2.5 billion per year when fully implemented.
Saying that tax policy is just plain wacky and inconsistent neglects these plain facts - that the past thirty years of the conservative veto have tilted tax policy, and most everything else, in a very rightward direction.
In actuality, we are seeing a grassroots/establishment divide, where the grassroots in the Democratic Party would like to see some leadership instead of another layer of failed solutions. Unfortunately, because the voices on the right are so loud in their opposition, and because advocates of the special elections would rather frame themselves in opposition to the right, the right is well-positioned to take credit for the defeat of these measures, should that happen. When that's simply not the lesson that ought to be learned.
The resultant fear is that the feckless Democratic leadership takes that lesson, and then cowers from going down the road of enacting the real structural reforms that represent the only solution possible to lift us from this perpetual disaster. That would be catastrophically wrong. Don't assume from a short-term setback that the Yacht Party mentality runs the state. People will pay for taxes in exchange for services; that was proven in 2005 and it's just as true today. Californians elect their leaders to function and yet the structure of government denies them. Dismantle that barrier, and restore democracy to the state.
On occasion, Skelton's villager columns get it dead wrong. And on occasion, he nails one. And then there's the columns that have you nodding your head in agreement until you smack dab into one of his Villagisms. That's where he's at today.
Today, he starts off on a tear, ripping into Arnold's arbitrary distinctions between "special interests" and "partners." Other people know these two groups as "people who oppose Arnold" and "the business lobby":
But Schwarzenegger's pattern -- the pattern of most politicians -- is to use the tag "special interest" as a synonym for "enemy." Schwarzenegger refers to allies as "partners." Several special interests are Schwarzenegger partners, notably the state Chamber of Commerce and the California Business Roundtable.
His current enemies include Health Access California, a liberal advocacy group that detests the spending cap offered by the budget package's linchpin, Proposition 1A, and the conservative Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which staunchly opposes 1A because it would extend temporary tax increases an additional year or two. (LA Times 3/23/09)
Health Access California is, of course, a friend of this blog. They have the temerity to fight for the "special interests" of children's health care and equal access. How dare they fight to improve Medi-Cal? And the audacity of reducing health insurance? Screw those jerks!
(Although, I'm with Arnold on HJTA.)
Skelton's argument continues with what any keen observer of California politics knows: the special interests know how to wag the dog of California. He even got one of them to go on the record with how he subverted democracy:
David Ackerman, a highway construction lobbyist, acknowledges that he relied on the two-thirds budget vote to leverage passage of some hotly debated bills. They softened diesel emission requirements for construction equipment, exempted some highway projects from environmental hoops and -- over the opposition of Caltrans engineers -- allowed some road projects to be designed by the builders.
"These probably wouldn't have happened in a 'functional' legislature," Ackerman concedes. (LA Times 3/23/09)
This won't surprise anybody who saw more than 20 minutes of the last budget battle, but Republicans and conservative use the fact that we have a broken system. I know, how very cynical, but it happens. Gasp! But, at least Skelton said it. It needs to be said in one form or another regularly, so that Californians understand just how messed up Sacramento really is. So, right on Mr. Skelton.
And there I am, at the very end of the article, and all content to be like Amen. And then, Skelton had to, just had to close with David Brooks-ian nod to the mushy middle about Prop 1A.
Prop. 1A will help control spending. But it will take a lot more than that to make the Capitol once again functional.
Well, that's the understatement of the year. Not only will 1A not make the Capitol functional, it will do just the opposite. It will permanently set the state backward, block any sort of permanent investment in our labor or physical infrastructure. Forget about health care reform, forget about improving our K12 education. Flush it all down the toilet.
I guess, with Skelton, you take the good with the gross understatement.
The weekly Democratic radio address (which ought to be a YouTube address, come on guys) called for an end to the 2/3 requirement for budget and tax increases. This is the first time in my memory that so many lawmakers are openly talking about revising 2/3. It's not a new problem - 28 of the last 32 budgets have been late due to legislative squabbling, with the fights becoming more protracted than ever over the past decade. And every economic downturn, no matter how slight, sets off a crisis. Assemblyman John Perez made it clear:
The budget would not have taken so long and would have not included non-budget related issues like an open primary if California did not have the unusual requirement of a two thirds vote for budget approval.
Reforming this two-thirds requirement should be a priority for all Californians.
Perez did not reference whether the new requirement should be the arbitrary 55% number, which is what the current initiative being circulated states, or a simple democratic majority. We've learned where a number of Democrats stand this weekend:
• Darrell Steinberg decided not to mention 2/3 hardly at all in his op-ed in the Sacramento Bee. That's a lack of leadership. No elected official should be speaking in public and pass up the opportunity to advocate for majority vote. He instead opted for a Broderist call for working together and the awkward tag line "Smarter going forward."
In comments to David Greenwald, Steinberg did call for repeal, but failed to pick a side.
"The answer in my view is to take this two-thirds supermajority requirement. We are one of three states in the country that allows a small minority of members to hold up the progress.... It doesn't really work for California; it worked this time barely because of the magnitude of the crisis... We need to take the question this two-thirds supermajority to the ballot. I feel even stronger now than I did when I started on December 1."
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, has proposed one that would allow lawmakers to approve budgets with 55 percent majorities if they do it by June 15. After that, it would take two-thirds votes.
It's not necessarily that this kind of measure would definitely not pass because all the thrust of majority democratic rule is lost, but that's certainly a factor.
• In that same article, Loni Hancock calls for a simple majority:
Hancock has introduced a constitutional amendment that would require only simple majorities to approve budgets.
"California needs to have a normal democracy like every other state in the nation except Rhode Island and Arkansas," she said.
That's a talking point. 55% is mush.
The point is that we have the Democratic leadership finally talking about the main impediment to the perpetual budget crisis. Without two-thirds, you can fix a tax system that is too closely tied to boom-and-bust economic cycles. Without two-thirds, you can end the virtual bribery of Yacht Party and moderate lawmakers. Without two-thirds, you can end the Big Five process that facilitates official secrecy and backroom deals and use a deliberative process involving the committee structure and relying on the input of the entire caucus. And without 2/3, you won't have to hear from high Broderist windbags tinkering on the margins with proposals that make them feel good but will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. It's kind of hilarious that the LAST proposal in George "Can't We All Get Along" Skelton's long list in today's column is this:
* A simple majority vote for budget passage; 55% at most. Scrap the two-thirds vote requirement.
Just a thought or two on this whole mess while we wait for the Senate to reconvene. While I didn't think it was the best strategy to announce a deal and start voting on it before there was an actual deal in place (although the rumor that Dave Cox reneged on a handshake deal changes my perspective a bit), Darrell Steinberg seems to have backed into a strategy of playing Yacht Party obstruction out very publicly, so that the essential insanity of their anti-tax, sink-the-state agenda can be well-described by what's left of political state media. So George Skelton does the math and refutes the Yacht Party assertion that cutting spending alone can solve the budget crisis, and Dan Walters manages to describe the situation accurately.
And we all sit at our computers and type out our "even Dan Walters and George Skelton believe" articles, eternally hopeful that this is the corner-turning event, that the public will find the right people to blame for the sorry state of affairs, and punish them repeatedly forever more. Only it's wishful thinking. First of all, I hate to break it, but nobody reads George Skelton and Dan Walters. They are opinion leaders to about .001% of the electorate. Second, there was another audience watching Sacramento this weekend, and they were the bondholders, who would be crazy to allow California to borrow one more red cent from them given the political fracturing (and this budget calls for 1.1 trillion red cents, or $11 billion dollars, to be borrowed). Even if this passed tomorrow there would need to be lots of short-term debt floated to manage the cash crisis until new revenues actually reached state coffers, and with the bond rating the lowest in the country and the dysfunction being played out, I don't see it happening.
The other point is that this is, let's face it, a bad deal for Californians. Among the sweeteners thrown in the deal to attract that elusive third Republican vote are a $10,000 tax break for home buyers to re-inflate the bubble and set the state economy up for an even bigger crash; weakened anti-pollution laws that will cost the state additional public health and environmental cleanup spending in the long-term; a potential budget cap that will make it impossible for public schools and social services to meet demand; and much more. The tax changes, which are short-term except for a huge break to multinationals, tax things that we want to encourage in a downturn, work and consumption. What the federal government is offering to spur demand and get the economy moving again is exactly what the state government will be cutting to balance the budget. That's not an argument to kill it, but it's a reflection of reality.
So there will be at best a kind of zero-growth stasis, and at worst a further crumbling of the local economy, with shrunken revenues likely to require another round of this by summer. Ultimately, the media cannot help the Democratic Party solve this problem. The bill is coming due for 30 years of anti-tax zealotry and the belief that we can provide whatever citizens need without paying for it. There isn't a light at the end of the tunnel. That some opinion leaders are coming around about 20 years to late doesn't wash the blood from their hands. And that the Democratic Party is finally thinking that they should maybe fight against the 2/3 requirement that has relegated them to a functional minority in Sacramento since is was instituted doesn't absolve them for 30 years of inattention.
It gives me no pleasure to bear the bad news, but there's no wake-up call on the horizon. Even all 38 million Californians coming to the same "Hey, GOP is suxxor" conclusion at the same time doesn't change structural realities. Those must be fought for over years if not decades, and it is not defeatist to wonder whether it's too late.
Your last word in what's happenin' (apologies to Raj and Rerun):
• Here's George Skelton having some fun and making up statistics to scapegoat immigrants, failing to mention the economic activity they produce and the Social Security payroll taxes they pay but never collect. It's simply wrong to pander to xenophobes the way Skelton does in this piece, under the guise of "being honest." If you want to be honest, explain that, as baby boomers age, the fiscal impact of younger workers in the country is positive, at least so says that left-wing rag the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and countless other studies.
• Debbie Cook has resufaced at the new site OC Progressive, and she writes a strong post about to need to collectively focus on energy as crucial to our future as a sustainable planet. It's really good.
• The Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A. reduced its staff by 20%. Not only construction and manufacturing jobs are affected by the meltdown. The arts and non-profits are among the hardest-hit.
• Just why did the NFL and the Los Angeles NBC affiliate ban an ad on marriage equality, and then lie that they weren't airing "advocacy-based" ads during on Super Bowl Sunday to boot? Someone ought to find out.
• California now has less wind power capacity than Iowa. I don't totally agree with the conclusions for why, but it's worth studying.
• CA-Sen: ZOMG, Chuck DeVore Twitters! And Facebooks! He raised $1,600 on Twitter! He's TOTALLY like Obama! (Is that 140 characters yet?)
By the way, that picture in the WSJ of DeVore checking his Blackberry like a strung-out meth addict should be atop all of Barbara Boxer's campaign literature for the next couple years.
• George Skelton occasionally gets a good column in with all the High Broderism, and in today's, he recognizes that the Governor is all talk when it comes to "blowing up the boxes" of waste in Sacramento. Not only that, the ideas he does champion, like eliminating the California Conservation Corps, are really stupid. And that's not me with the ad hominem attack, that's me quoting Cal State Sacramento political science professor Barbara O'Connor.
• At the new site CalPensions, there is talk of former Republican Assemblyman Keith Richman using the Internet to gather signatures for an anti-worker "pension reform" initiative. OOOH!!! Using the Internet! Next thing you know Richman will get wise to the Facebook and the Twitter!
Thing is, Internet or no Internet, Californians like workers because by and large they ARE workers.
• There's another powerful special interest waiting to argue their case in the halls of the legislature: say hello to Big Golf, which doesn't want increased taxes on golf-related activities, which are currently exempt from sales tax. Don't make me change the name of Republicans to the Golf Party!
• Arnold's spending cuts are incredibly painful on the least of society. The LAO is offering a more sensible and less punitive alternative.
• The San Diego Chargers are looking to "expand" into the LA Market. You have to wonder if San Diego can compete with LA to hold onto the Chargers, if a competition begins.
• This has got to be the coolest photo of the inauguration ever. You can pan around and find some crazy stuff. Yo Yo Ma taking an iPhone photo, Dick Cheney looking, well, evil, and what I think is a sleeping Clarence Thomas. Really, really cool. If you were there, can you find yourself?
Prop 11 is a solution in search of a problem - and a bad solution at that. At a time when our state's budget crisis ought to remind us that the real problem is the ridiculous 2/3 rule, Broderist columnists like the LA Times' George Skelton are trying to put in one last pitch for Prop 11.
In doing so all they accomplish is highlighting the absurdity of their proposal and their cynical approach to politics - assuming that California voters are animated by blind rage and a desire to smash a broken government instead of thinking intelligently about how to fix it.
The interesting thing is that Skelton doesn't even attempt his usual efforts to argue why Prop 11 is needed. The "competitive elections" argument has been proved false by the six or seven competitive races in the Assembly, most of them in districts drawn to favor Republicans. Nor does Skelton attempt to say Prop 11 will solve the budget deficit. He merely assumes it to be a good idea.
Skelton lists "good government" organizations like Common Cause and LWV to suggest that Prop 11 isn't a Republican power grab - never mind the fact that Arnold and other right-wingers are dumping money into it. Nowhere does he explain the real purpose here: to keep Democrats away from a 2/3 majority in the Legislature.
He also gets the details wrong, claiming:
Under the proposal, any frequent voter could apply to be a redistricting commissioner -- as long as the person had no political connections. Prop. 11 drafters really wanted to ensure that commissioners had no partisan agendas.
But as Brian pointed out last night a drafting error excludes frequent voters. This vaunted "independent commission" will include infrequent and uninformed voters - which is fitting given that this proposal speaks primarily to such an audience.
• The SacBee has a nice little comparison between the three budget plans, Arnold's, the Democratic conference committee's, and the GOP borrow and spend "plan."
• Are we a "high-tax" state? George Skelton takes a look at some of the numbers. It's not such an easy question. You can get numbers anywhere from 6th in the country to 45th on different metrics. Take a look at the article, there's a lot of data there.
• There's a fundraiser for Ginny Mayer for State Senate on September 14th. Ginny Mayer is running for the 35th District, which runs along the coast from Seal Beach to Irvine and Newport Beach, currently held by Tom Harman.
It's a good bet that 51% of the Legislature would have voted for a budget by now -- maybe even had one in place for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. But 67% is required.
Only two other states have such a monstrous hurdle. And both are better positioned to deal with it because, unlike California, their legislatures are lopsidedly dominated by one party....
State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), a hero of fiscal conservatives, long has favored allowing a majority budget vote.
"The two-thirds vote for the budget has not contained spending, and it blurs accountability," McClintock says. "If anything, in past years, it has prompted additional spending as votes for the budget are cobbled together."
The rub is that while McClintock is willing to support a majority vote for a budget he is not willing to support majority vote for taxes. That is the one that really matters. If we had a majority rule for the budget but 2/3 for taxes, it would do nothing to change the current budget standoff as Republicans would still use their numbers to block a tax increase and therefore block a budget.
The column has some good quotes from Steinberg and Bass, who are showing welcome interest in fixing the odious 2/3 rule:
Both incoming Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) say they'll consider developing a 2010 ballot initiative to permit majority-vote budgets.
"I'm telling you, I'm very serious about it," Steinberg says. "We can't keep doing this. This is ridiculous. It's unproductive."
Bass figures there would be plenty of financial support for a ballot campaign from labor unions, healthcare providers and others who rely on public funds and are frustrated by incessantly tardy budgets.
"This budget crisis we're in is a perfect example of why we need to be like 47 other states," Bass says. "I'm not sure what we have in common with Arkansas and Rhode Island. . . .
"We would have had a budget by the constitutional deadline, June 15."
Both Bass and Steinberg need to move on a fix for the 2/3 rule. But since that won't happen until 2010, we need a solution to THIS budget crisis - a solution which will require voters to hold Republicans accountable for their hostage tactics.
Lest we let Skelton off easy today, he still shows he believes in the Media's First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of Republicans:
Don't blame Republicans either. They're being asked by the governor to break their pledges -- however misguided they were -- not to raise taxes. Moreover, most are philosophically opposed to taxing people more -- particularly during a recession -- and are sticking to their principles. That's supposed to be an admirable trait.
Nonsense. The 2/3 rule isn't a problem unless one party makes it a problem. The Republicans are using the 2/3 rule as a weapon to destroy this state and make its residents suffer. Don't let them get away with it.
I will be on KRXA 540 AM this morning at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics
Regardless of your stance on Proposition 11, the redistricting reform measure, hopefully everyone can agree that it shouldn't be used to distort reality, right? Unfortunately that's exactly what's happening in the media's coverage of both Prop 11 and the budget fight. Today's column from George Skelton is a perfect example of how the media likes to let Republicans off the hook for their failures by blaming Democrats instead - in this case for the long budget delay.
Skelton buys hook, line, and sinker - without the skepticism a journalist should normally display - the bill of goods that Arnold Schwarzenegger sells him on Prop 11 and the budget. Although Skelton acknowledges the 2/3 rule is more important, he still buys into the long discredited notion that legislative redistricting is the cause of Sacramento gridlock:
But I wouldn't argue with Schwarzenegger's thesis: Gerrymandering tends to reward extremism in both parties and punish compromise, locking lawmakers into ideological corners....
Republicans pledge not to raise taxes. Democrats promise a laundry list of social programs the state can't afford.
Then they come to Sacramento and can't compromise.
"With the redistricting the way it is done, Republicans can only win [primaries] if they're way to the right and Democrats can only win if they are way to the left," Schwarzenegger lamented to a Los Angeles news conference Wednesday, pitching for his budget proposal that includes a sales tax increase, billions in spending cuts and budgeting reform.
Neither Arnold nor Skelton are telling the truth, and I leave it up to the reader to determine whether this is a deliberate lie. The Democrats HAVE produced compromise after compromise. They have consistently agreed to spending cuts over the last several years and the joint Assembly-Senate Democratic budget plan this year included several billion in spending cuts, alongside new revenues. That's exactly the solution a new PPIC poll suggests Californians want. Dems even put it to a vote - and Republicans shot it down. Republicans have yet to offer ANY alternative.
It is undeniable that it is the Republicans alone who are responsible for this budget delay. Look at the email Republican Senator Dave Cogdill sent rejecting compromise:
"The Modesto Bee wants me to raise YOUR taxes!
"I just wanted to pass on this morning's editorial from one of our local papers. They are calling on my friend Assembly Leader Mike Villines and me to consider raising your taxes. I don't think that's what you elected me to do. You elected me to represent you and to fight for a commonsense budget that is not balanced on the backs of taxpayers. California is already one of the most over-taxed states in the nation. With an additional tax increase, we'd vie for number one. That is not a distinction this state needs, especially with a slowing economy.
"This state has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. A tax increase would only encourage more irresponsible spending, cause the loss of over 56,000 jobs, smother the economy, and hurt hardworking Californians. Instead of a tax increase, this state desperately needs budget reform, measures to stimulate the economy and fiscal restraint now and into the future.
Both Skelton and Schwarzenegger allude to the reasons for Cogdill's and other Republicans' refusal to compromise - if they do they will be subject to a primary challenge by another wingnut who will say "the incumbent voted for a tax increase," which makes Republican legislators skittish:
Sitting in his conference room, Schwarzenegger told me: "They are saying things in here -- and I never want to repeat it because what we say in this office shouldn't be repeated -- but it's clear that their hearts are sometimes in the right direction. But they're afraid to go back to their districts because they'd get slaughtered.
"They could never win anything again. Their political career is over."
Schwarzenegger was referring to the Republicans he has been trying to lobby for a tax increase. But he added: "Same thing with the Democrats. They have those kind of fears."
With Republicans running so far to the right and Democrats to the left, the governor complained, "they can't meet in the middle."
The first part refers to Republicans and is entirely accurate. But Arnold can't tell Californians the truth, that this budget crisis is entirely the Republicans' fault, so he tacks on at the end "oh yeah the Dems have the same problem."
But they don't. Democrats have been willing to propose spending cuts. It's not fear of the left that has prevented them from compromising but the fact that Republicans refuse tax increases. Arnold and Skelton are not being straight with the public here.
More fundamentally, their views on Prop 11 and the budget defy logic. As has been explained countless times - apparently falling on deaf ears - "gerrymandering" is NOT the cause of Republican extremism. Most of California is politically self-segregated. There's no way to draw competitive districts in San Francisco, Fresno, and south Orange County.
The Republican Party nationwide is characterized by a far-right anti-government zealotry that pervades the voter base and the funding sources. Prop 11 won't change that.
Finally, Skelton again repeats the discredited canard that California has a spending problem. Instead we have a structural revenue shortfall - we don't raise enough money to pay for basic services. Republicans know this but don't have the guts to implement revenue solutions because they're scared of their fellow far-right freaks. Republicans and Republicans alone are responsible for the budget delay.
But instead of placing the blame squarely on their shoulders, look how Skelton ends his column:
Good people working in a bad system -- some of it, the gerrymandering, self-perpetuated by Democrats.
He winds up blaming Democrats for Republican failures. And we wonder why the budget is so late. If I knew that I could screw around and not do my job and someone else would get the blame, I'd do it too.
I really don't know where this came from other than the shrinking class of California political pundits just understanding common sense, but they are all gradually coming on board with the notion that what's killing the state is the 2/3 requirement, and that until it's fixed, nothing in the Capitol will materially change.
Most of George Skelton's column today concerns the "dance of death" - a ritual slaughtering of budget proposals through the normal legislative process until one survivor comes out on top. There is too much of a top-down approach in the legislature, with the Big 5 making the determination on the budget instead of the relevant committees having a crack at it. But near the end, Skelton reveals the truth:
My nomination for additional budget reform: Eliminate the ludicrous requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote for passage of a budget. Only two other states suffer the same straitjacket. California would have had a budget weeks ago if it could have been passed by a simple majority vote. The governor still would have the final say with his paring knife.
This mirrors exactly what conservative Dan Walters said in his column the day before. Walters wants to keep the requirement for tax votes, but he does seem to understand that without the accountability that a majority budget vote provides, there's no way to peg the fortunes or failures of the state on any one political party. Not only does it hinder legislators from doing their jobs, it impedes the opportunity for voters to determine the cause and effect. It's the "killer app" for governmental reform, and must be the first, last and only step in the short term to end the perpetual crisis at the heart of a broken system.
Now, this reform will not come easy. Republicans will caterwaul at losing the only leverage they currently own. The only path to this solution comes with actually getting a 2/3 majority in both chambers, and then offering the solution up for a vote in time for the next governor to reap the rewards. The Drive for 2/3 is monumentally important (and it's likely to be a two-cycle process) to restore functionality to Sacramento and allow legislators to do the work their constituents sent them to the Capitol to do.
