I always enjoy observing and participating in discussions with my friend and former colleague, the wonderful Sheila Kuehl. She is brilliant, observant, funny, wise and has outstanding politics. She has written an excellent piece that appeared in Monday’s LA Times and points the finger of blame for the state’s current mess directly and unequivocally at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. While I don’t disagree with her analysis that he has been a disaster for the state, the key factor that distinguishes the current situation from those of chief executives in the past, aside from Schwarzenegger’s incompetence is the extreme partisanship and rancor that have taken hold in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C. We’re seeing the right-wing extremists emerging into the debate at all levels with all their absurdities, dishonesty and plain ignorance, starting with Sarah Palin’s entry into the national political arena with her inexplicable nomination as the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee.
While Sheila’s examples are accurate and legitimate, this is a starkly different Sacramento than that of the past. The level of acrimony, irrationality and intractability this bitter, fear-mongering anti-government movement has generated simply cannot be overstated. Sheila contends that other governors have been able to deal with the problems of governing in spite of the structural deficiencies in our system of governance— like the minority rule provisions of budget and taxation which require a 2/3 super-majority; the creation of artificial and truncated legislative terms; the initiative process that allows anyone from anywhere to put a measure on the California ballot as long as they have the money; the infusion of enormous amount of corporate money—. the combination of all these factors has created the toxic stew that has slammed the doors on governing. But the spirit of compromise is now virtually non-existent.
Sheila is right-on that this Governor thought he could use his movie-star persona and public-relations ploys to “reform” the state. What he didn’t understand, and still doesn’t, is that politics is a unique process which requires respect, give-and-take and understanding of the goals and purposes for which it was created. While reform is a good thing when done right, “blowing up the boxes” when you have no idea which ones to blow up and how to replace them with something that functions in the best interests of the people is another thing.
That being said, the “tea-bagger” mentality has overtaken the Republican Party, and it started when Senator Kuehl and I served together in the Legislature. A seminal moment occurred in 2002 when then Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte announced to the Republican Caucus that any member who voted for the budget would be challenged in his next primary and “taken out” in the next election. While this intimidated most of the Republican members, the fact is that the few, brave and reasonable legislators who understood the importance of passing the budget and acknowledged that many compromises had been made to their ideology were all defeated in their primaries or literally harassed not to run for re-election. In my opinion, this was the beginning of the end of constructive politics as we know it in California. The message to the Republicans was clear and simple: You compromise, you’re out.
As long as we require this ridiculous super-majority to pass a budget in the legislature, thus allowing the minority to overrule the majority will of the people, the tactics of the right-wing will prevail. For proof, just look at the havoc created in Washington by the Senate Republicans who are employing the 60- vote filibuster rules to destroy efforts made by the majority to implement change in our country that the overwhelming number of Americans supported in 2008.
Schwarzenegger has been a disaster, and a Governor Whitman will clearly be the same. She has got no experience with government, hasn’t even bothered to vote for over twenty years and thinks the world will capitulate to her because of her money and her bullying tactics. She’s wrong, but until we fix the mess in Sacramento, it won’t really matter much.
Tag Archives: schwarzenegger
CA Voters Kept In Dark About Budget
Today’s San Jose Mercury News has a front-page story, California leaders in no hurry to break budget impasse. From the story,
“Despite plunging tax
revenues, Wall Street’s unwillingness to loan the state money and
billions of dollars worth of IOUs hitting mailboxes, California’s
leaders are displaying a seeming lack of urgency to close the state’s
$26.3 billion deficit.Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders blew past a supposedly ironclad June 30 deadline to pass a new budget…”
Blew past? The legislature did pass a budget fix last week, but the Governor vetoed it! This choice by the Governor led to the state needing to issue IOUs.
But readers who depend on this newspaper for information about the state budget process have no way to know this. In fact, I have had difficulty locating any news source in the state that informed citizens that a budget fix passed and was vetoed. (The papers did write that the Governor had threatened a veto, but — and I may be wrong – I can not find a single story explaining that he did it.)
To their credit (I guess) the San Jose paper hinted at the veto in an editorial a week ago, Governor didn’t need to push state over the edge, writing,
“In rejecting a stopgap fix for the budget on Tuesday, the governor and GOP leaders have accelerated a budget meltdown that pushes the state deeper into debt.“
Talking to people involved, I pick up a sense that passing a budget fix after the Governor said he would veto it was pointless, so not worth mentioning. But isn’t that for the voters to decide? Many would say that passing the fix, especially at the last minute after all negotiations had failed and the state was going over the cliff was the responsible thing to do, also known as governing. This put a budget fix on the table and available for use to avoid the calamity and cost of IOUs, rating downgrades, etc. The Governor had a clear choice at that point, and chose to take the state over the cliff. The voters should have been told, not kept in the dark that the Governor made that choice.
Meanwhile, the other side still refuses to offer up any plan of their own, still insisting that the Democrats fix the budget entirely with cuts to services that the public needs and take the blame for that. They refuse to allow any plan that asks oil or tobacco companies to pitch in. They claim the wealthy will “leave the state” if asked to pitch in an additional $40 a week. They make up stories about companies leaving the state (but can’t name any). But it is not reported that the Republicans refuse to offer a plan or engage in serious negotiations. It is as if the Republicans are expected to not be serious, so it’s not worth reporting that they aren’t serious. The voters should have been told.
The system of democracy depends on the voters being informed so they can apply pressure as needed and remove officeholders who are not doing what the voters want them to do. But none of this works if the citizens have no way of learning simple facts, like that the legislature did govern responsibly and pass a budget fix, which the Governor vetoed. The voters should have been told.
Disappointment … Disgrace
The champagne was not even uncorked before Gov. Schwarzenegger announced last night that he would veto the ground-breaking law passed by the California Assembly Tuesday granting same-sex couples the legal right to marry.
We hear from the Governor’s spokespeople that he believes the law should be decided by either the people or the courts. Apparently they didn’t make him read the State Constitution before he left the movie set for the Governor’s Office, but the legislative and executive branches are also responsible for making law. In fact, some would argue that it’s their job to enact the most difficult laws, since they are the ones we have entrusted to lead this state.
The argument that he can’t sign this important law because of Proposition 22 is a very thinly veiled copout. Not only is Prop 22 a different animal than the same-sex marriage law (the latter goes to people’s constitutional rights, which trumps all else) it was passed more than five years ago, before San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom showed the world that granting marriage licenses to loving same-sex couples would not cause giant cracks in the earth to open up. Schwarzenegger recently sent out an email criticizing a poll because it gauged people’s views from two weeks earlier. Surely he could see how opinions about the same-sex marriage issue might be changed in five whole years. But no, he insists on pandering to his right-wing allies.
Many have expressed disappointment and outrage that they didn’t even get 24 hours to celebrate this hard-fought victory. Perhaps Schwarzenegger’s advisors told him that he had to come out against the bill sooner rather than later, in order to curb the flood of lobbying letters and calls that were jamming up his office.
Here at Speak Out California, we don’t plan on letting him get off that easy. Send a letter to the Governor now, urging him to do the right thing and sign this bill.