Posted on 03/13/2007 6:40:29 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO – Creating commissions to address thorny issues has become a hallmark of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's governing style. The problem is they never seem to amount to much.
High-profile Schwarzenegger advisory panels on prisons and government efficiency went nowhere. Now the governor has launched commissions on issues lawmakers have struggled with for years: prison sentences, the state water system and public-employee pensions.
An in-depth report on schools requested by another Schwarzenegger panel, along with legislative leaders and the state schools chief, is scheduled to be released tomorrow.
“Commissions are where intractable issues go to die,” said Thad Kousser, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego. “They are not hugely important.”
Kousser said he is unaware of any academic studies of government commissions that are regarded by some not as an important part of the political process, but as more show than substance.
Commissions can make it seem like tough choices may be made that alienate key constituencies, he said. But unpopular or unworkable commission proposals are easily orphaned, left hanging without support from lawmakers.
“Commissions are a way to relieve some political pressure, but they rarely lead to results,” Kousser said.
A less-critical view of commissions comes from a man who was chairman of two well-publicized commissions that produced no direct results – Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable.
Hauck was co-chairman of a commission appointed by the Republican governor in 2004 that held half a dozen hearings on the California Performance Review, which emerged from the governor's campaign pledge to “blow up the boxes” and make government more efficient.
Meeting stiff opposition, Schwarzenegger dropped an attempt to enact even a small part of the 1,200 recommendations in the sweeping overhaul proposal: eliminating 88 boards and commissions. The governor made no further attempt to implement the plan, calling it flawed.
Hauck also led a California Constitutional Revision Commission, authorized by legislation, that held 30 public hearings during two years before issuing recommendations in 1996 for revamping state government.
“The advocates for the status quo are more numerous and better organized than those who will support these needed changes,” Hauck said in a prophetic letter accompanying the report that could have applied to the subsequent commission's proposals as well.
Looking back, Hauck said the ideas in the constitutional commission report serve as a kind of benchmark and are still discussed. He thinks some of the recommendations in the subsequent Performance Review that do not require legislation have probably been implemented by department heads.
“There is no final qualitative way to measure whether the effort of people in these things is productive or not,” Hauck said in an interview.
The report on schools due tomorrow, funded by four foundations, pulls together 23 school studies dealing with cost and efficiency. A commission appointed by the governor two years ago was among those requesting the report.
Schwarzenegger formed the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence instead of appointing a panel authorized in legislation in 2002 by former state Sen. Dede Alpert, D-Coronado, the Quality Education Committee.
The committee envisioned by Alpert would have determined the cost of a quality education in different areas of the state – a change from a debate that has focused on bringing per-pupil funding in California up to the national average.
The head of Schwarzenegger's education committee, Ted Mitchell, said the governor wanted a broader look at schools that went beyond whether funding is adequate. The committee will draw on the report due tomorrow and its own work as it makes recommendations.
“We want to make recommendations to the Legislature that are clear, that are bold and actionable,” said Mitchell, a former president of Occidental College who now heads the NewSchools Venture Fund in San Francisco.
The education committee may have its recommendations ready by January, when Schwarzenegger also is scheduled to receive reports from his panels on water and pensions.
With an executive order last September, the governor created the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force to provide a long-term management program for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the source of about a quarter of San Diego's water.
Crumbling Delta levees threaten not only the water supply but major transportation and energy lines. It's a battleground for competing interests: urban users, farmers and environmentalists. In addition, Northern Californians fear a raid on their water by a more populous Southern California.
A proposal in 1982 for a canal to connect the Sacramento River with southbound state and federal aqueducts, bypassing the natural bottleneck of the Delta, was favored by Southern Californians but failed because of an overwhelming “no” vote in Northern California.
The governor established the Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission to propose a plan for dealing with rising pension and retiree health costs for state and local governments. The chairman is Gerald Parsky of Rancho Santa Fe.
As he launched his ill-fated “Year of Reform” initiatives two years ago, Schwarzenegger dropped a proposal to switch new government pensions from guaranteed monthly payments to 401(k)-style investment plans, which angered powerful public-employee unions.
A change in accounting rules requires governments to begin reporting their retiree health debt in June 2008. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst estimates that the unfunded liability for retired state worker health care is $40 billion to $70 billion.
Former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson pushed through legislation that reduced state worker pension benefits. When former Gov. Gray Davis, the first Democratic governor in 16 years, took office in 1999, pension benefits were increased again.
No legislation has been introduced yet for the 17-member sentencing commission proposed by the governor as part of a $11 billion plan to expand and reform an overcrowded prison system, where 173,000 prisoners are packed into buildings designed for 100,000 inmates.
His push to build more prisons is a reversal for Schwarzenegger, whose first state budget in January 2004 proposed the creation of a commission to recommend prison closures.
The new administration expected to reduce the prison population by diverting some parole violators into drug programs and halfway houses. But the struggling program was dropped after a victims group ran television ads blasting the governor for releasing dangerous criminals.
A commission on prisons appointed by Schwarzenegger and chaired by former Gov. George Deukmejian issued a report in July 2004 with 239 recommendations, including turning over administration of the troubled state Department of Corrections to a citizens commission.
The department is still run by the Schwarzenegger administration, and critics say the Deukmejian report was basically shelved without action. A department spokesman, Bill Sessa, said “bits and pieces” of the Deukmejian report are contained in Schwarzenegger's prison proposals.
only so long the charade can last before somebody starts asking to see results instead of 'ideas' and 'beliefs'. We aren't liberals, after all. We are the party who relies on actual results.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.