California's budget process has certainly taken on an air of drama as legislators and the governor march toward a deadline tomorrow with no real sign of an accord. The state never meets its deadline, but this year things are a bit different. Voters had passed Prop. 25 last November, which allows passage of a budget with a simple majority vote rather than the two-thirds majority previously required. It doesn't allow taxes to be raised with a simple majority, however. But it also includes something that I had previously viewed as a faux reform gimmick designed merely to get voters to approve of this Democratic-backed initiative. Per the official summary, Prop. 25 "Provides that if the Legislature fails to pass a budget bill by June 15,
all members of the Legislature will permanently forfeit any
reimbursement for salary and expenses for every day until the day the
Legislature passes a budget bill."
I was talking to state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, yesterday in the Senate chambers and he told me that, based on information circulating around the Capitol, 80 percent of California legislators are living paycheck-to-paycheck and that this provision is having a real effect on negotiations. I talked to a Republican chief of staff in the Assembly and he agreed with that conclusion: "Members have been talking to other members and saying, 'You do realize we won't get paid.'" It's still unclear what Prop. 25's main provision will do. I personally fear that a simple majority budget will give the majority party added leverage for higher taxes. But this minor provision might actually prod legislators to approve of a budget deal to spare their own personal budgets. Go figure. City Journal California's Ben Boychuk captured the disgust many of us rightly feel toward these legislators: "I
don't quite know how to respond to that. Pity? Contempt? Mockery? A
combination of all three? (Yet another reason, added to a whole bevy of
them, why we should have a part-time legislature here.)"
And to add to that justifiable sense of disgust: Gov. Jerry Brown, who had assured Californians that he would not embrace the typical budget gimmicks that have been used in the past to close the deficit, now says that "he would consider using accounting gimmicks to balance California's budget deficit," according to the Sacramento Bee. The only good news is there's a new push to shut down redevelopment agencies to find that $1.7 billion savings promised by the governor. But I don't expect anything good to come from a Legislature whose members are driven by their own paychecks and from a governor who is completely beholden to his public-sector union allies.
And to add to that justifiable sense of disgust: Gov. Jerry Brown, who had assured Californians that he would not embrace the typical budget gimmicks that have been used in the past to close the deficit, now says that "he would consider using accounting gimmicks to balance California's budget deficit," according to the Sacramento Bee. The only good news is there's a new push to shut down redevelopment agencies to find that $1.7 billion savings promised by the governor. But I don't expect anything good to come from a Legislature whose members are driven by their own paychecks and from a governor who is completely beholden to his public-sector union allies.
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