Sacramento: You haven't changed a bit

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 8/23/04 | Vic Pollard

[NormsRevenge]

SACRAMENTO -- A little over a year ago, I wrote that California's state government was in the worst mess I had ever seen.

At the time, Gov. Gray Davis was paralyzed by the threat of the recall election. The Democratically controlled Legislature was out of control, making monumental mistakes like passing the politically unacceptable immigrant driver's license bill and acquiescing in the car tax increase.

Since then, a lot has happened.

Davis lost his job, and Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into office promising a whirlwind of reform and "action, action, action."

But how much have things really changed?

It's fair to say there have been some changes for the better.

But not many. The hope that the recall election would teach Sacramento to change its ways -- deal with the long-term needs of the state instead of the short-term desires of special interests -- is still mostly a hope.

One encouraging development is the proposal for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the state government organization being considered by a commission set up by the governor.

Not that all of the recommendations of the California Performance Review will be enacted. Most probably won't. But the exercise itself will force policy makers to think about whether they have to keep doing things the same way, just because that's the way they've always been done.

On another front, the Legislature's reaction to Schwarzenegger has been interesting.

Nobody reads election results like politicians. In his first few months in office, Schwarzenegger's popularity and his unique approach left the Democratic leadership thoroughly cowed. As if he were a stern-faced parent, they bowed to his demands to repeal the driver's license law, reform workers' compensation and deal with his rollback of the vehicle license fee.

But like children, lawmakers soon began to test their limits. Their first victory went almost unnoticed. They demanded changes in the balanced budget amendment on the March 2 ballot so it wouldn't be quite so hard to increase future spending. Schwarzenegger acquiesced, apparently to avoid missing the ballot deadline.

Then came a succession of compromises on the state budget. The governor softened cuts in health and welfare programs for Democrats. For Republicans, he scratched his plans for some $200 million in fees to help balance the budget.

Not that there's anything wrong with compromise. Politics is the art of compromise, the old saying goes.

But when the $105 billion budget was finally passed, there was such a huge gap between revenues and spending that it bore a frightening resemblance to the last budget signed by Davis. It burdens the next generation of Californians with billions of dollars in new debt to pay for the current generation's failure to face fiscal reality.

That's the biggest thing that hasn't changed since Schwarzenegger took over.

But it's business as usual in Sacramento on other fronts, too.

The Legislature's scheduled Aug. 31 adjournment for the year is being preceded by the traditional dizzying schedule of fund raising breakfasts, lunches, cocktail parties and dinner.

Lobbyists for unions, big business, professional groups and other special interests receive piles of invitations daily, often with ticket prices in the thousands of dollars.

The message is clear: This is the last-minute crunch time when most important bills get pushed through the Legislature; your bill may not get fair consideration from a lawmaker whose campaign didn't get a check from you.

It's difficult to prove that campaign contributions amount to a bribes, but new questions get raised all the time.

The latest scandal involves Democratic Secretary of State Kevin Shelley. Three years ago, before he left the Assembly, Shelley arranged a $500,000 grant for construction of a new community center in San Francisco.

The center was never built, but investigators are probing revelations in the San Francisco Chronicle that at least $125,000 of the money made its way into Shelley's 2002 campaign for secretary of state.

Schwarzenegger got a rude lesson in the grip of special interests on Sacramento when he tried to squeeze concessions from the powerful unions for prison guards and other state workers.

Early on, the new governor breezily predicted he could persuade the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to give back $350 million of a lucrative pay raise package it had negotiated with the Davis administration.

All the governor was able get was $108 million in initial reductions. To get it, he gave the union so many new controls over work schedules and other prison policies that it prompted a federal judge to threaten a takeover of the state prison system.

So is there still a mess in Sacramento?

Yes, but Schwarzenegger and the few reform-minded members of the Legislature may still have enough political capital to clean up a little of it.

[45Auto]

The only power that a Repubo governor has with those PaleoMarxist vermin in the Cal Legislature is the Veto pen; as long as the RATs hold on to their majority, there will be NO lasting reform on anything. And they will hold that majority far into the future because the state's voting districts have been comfortably Gerrymandered to keep the RAT-bastards in power.

[NormsRevenge]

gerrymandered .. big time.

Fair Districts

[lainie]

We were told repeatedly that his moderate stances meant he wouldn't be perceived (and treated) as a "conservative" by the legislature, and that this was a great thing. That he'd sidestep those problems that would occur should, say, a conservative have been elected. So, a conservative governor wouldn't be getting anywhere, and a moderate mushyspined governor isn't getting anywhere. Now I'll complete that thought for many readers: but it's not his fault, as he wasn't a conservative so how could anyone expect him to act like it.