Dan Walters: The law of unintended political consequences trumps all others

Sacramento Bee ^ | 6/21/6 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

The most powerful law governing politics -- at least those in California -- is the one called "unintended consequences."

While any major decision made by voters or politicians may have its declared or intended effect, inevitably it will also manifest itself in consequences that no one anticipated, or at least acknowledged, before the fact.

California's nearly 30-year history with Proposition 13, the landmark ballot measure that slashed property taxes, is the most obvious case in point. As the state became the primary financier for schools, it sparked creation of a powerful "Education Coalition," dominated by the California Teachers Association and other unions, which made increasing state aid its central goal. And that would lead to Proposition 98, the 1988, union-backed initiative that enacted a highly complex formula for calculating the state's financial obligation to schools.

Proposition 98 had several unintended, or at least unvoiced, consequences, one of which surfaced in the early 1990s when the state faced the severest budget crisis in its history. Sacramento's politicians resorted to a convoluted scheme called the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF), under which the state reallocated several billion dollars of property taxes from local governments to schools, thereby allowing the state to reduce its direct aid to education and making the local governments eat the cut. ERAF expanded, galvanizing local officials into seeking some protections for their treasuries, culminating in a 2004 ballot measure that installed those barriers.

Another unintended consequence of Proposition 98 was to give governors an incentive to micromanage schools. School unions envisioned creating a large pot of money that would simply be given to school districts, thereby allowing the unions to use their political influence on school trustees to gain better salary and fringe benefit packages. But that didn't sit well with the first governor..., Republican Pete Wilson.