As Assemblymembers and Senators try to rush to put the largest bond measure in state history on the June ballot days after the legal deadline, the question on everyone’s minds should be: where was the Governor on this earlier?
There is no reason why this rush should be happening. The Governor was fine with this proposal being on the November ballot — why wouldn’t he, after all? The infrastructure bond is very popular with voters and it would give him the opportunity to talk about it at every campaign stop if it was on the ballot at the same time as he was up for re-election. So why this last-ditch effort to rush for June?
My guess is it’s more smoke and mirrors — what we’ve come to expect from the Schwarzenegger administration. And with the mainstream press as clueless as it is, it’s not difficult to sell the storyline of the “incompetent Legislature” that can’t get it together to pass this bond. But this, of course, is not the true story.
There are two main things to remember here — things you will not read about in the mainstream media. One, no matter how hard the Democrats work to come up with a plan that would benefit most Californians, the Republicans in the Legislature will always stonewall them. The Republicans in the California Legislature are some of the most right-wing, Neanderthal, outside-of-the-mainstream people in politics. They have seats only because seats have been rigged for them — not because these kinds of Republicans could ever win in a competitive district in California, the most progressive state in the nation.
Two, stop for a second to think about the level of negotiation and compromise that must go into a $50 BILLION bond for massive infrastructure projects all across the state (in every Legislator’s district). That’s a lot of money. Those are a lot of projects. Furthermore, it has to pass by a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and Senate, something that rarely happens anytime ever (see above comment about Republicans), as well as the Governor’s office, when the Governor is banking his re-election on this plan.
The chances of something like this being hashed out in a week are slim, and they should be. In fact, if they do manage to squeeze something out in the middle of the night when everyone is at wits-end, it will be the people of California who lose. It’s not possible for a bond package being executed in this rushed and thrown together way to be the best bond package for the people of this state. You can thank Gov. Schwarzenegger for another example of failed leadership amid opportunity.