California Legislature's wheeling and dealing rises to a new level in budget deal

Sacramento Bee ^ | 3/9/9 | Steve Wiegand

[SmithL]

Once upon a time, they held out for a judgeship for their cousin. Now, they want constitutional amendments.

As California's Legislature has grown more stridently partisan and its two-thirds approval requirement on budgets and tax-increase bills grows increasingly difficult to secure, the time-honored game of political logrolling has evolved to much higher stakes.

And if the 2009 version is any indication, the new way is here to stay.

"Logrolling" is a term of political art that refers to what is usually quietly conducted horse-trading among lawmakers: You back my agenda, I back yours.

But as legislators have become entrenched in partisan camps, said Tim Hodson, a former legislative staffer who is director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento, budget negotiators must persuade the minority party caucuses "to allow their sacrificial lambs to vote for the budget."

That means the "lambs" are likely to have loftier demands in return for their votes.

"As long as you are dealing with a situation where legislators are more afraid of bolting their own caucus than of any benefits they can get for their vote," Hodson said, "the (logrolling) requests are likely to be more global than in the past."

That was reflected in last month's adoption of a mammoth budget-balancing package of bills.

The key vote to provide the two-thirds margin needed for approval of the package belonged to state Sen. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican from Santa Maria.

And Maldonado's very public price was – among other things that included the removal of a proposed 12-cents-a-gallon gas tax hike – legislative assent to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would change primary election procedures (and make it easier for moderate politicians, such as Maldonado, to win elections.)

"That is much more explicit and much more general ...

[calcowgirl]

And Maldonado's very public price was – among other things that included the removal of a proposed 12-cents-a-gallon gas tax hike

Actually, his "very public price" did NOT say anything about the gas tax.

Arnie et. al. just chose to give him credit for it if he would play front-man for the Open Primary.

[theBuckwheat]

They are still not desperate enough that they will allow more extraction of oil and gas offshore.

[sinanju]

It’s not going to be a pretty sight as the situation grows ever more desperate and it gradually sinks in that the same old, same old tricks and sleight-of-hand simply are no longer going to work in the face of the brute fact of running out of money.

Eventually, the hard choices will have to be made. We saw the furious reaction to the furloughs. What’s next, as the sacred cows are finally butchered?

[calcowgirl]

They won’t avoid making the hard choices until literally ALL of the potential funding sources dry up. Unfortunately, there is still a way to go.

Borrowing and the tax hikes they passed are just a start. Look for more moves like the lottery — selling off revenue generating state assets for upfront cash infusions in the form of public private partnerships (think schools, highways, etc). And of course they will launch an all out assault on Prop 13, attacking it as the largest reason for the state’s budget problems. If ONLY property owners paid more taxes! And I can’t leave out my favorite: it’s all the fault of partisanship and those evil Republicans that won’t stray from their ideology and approve new taxes (which the left uses as an argument for doing away with the 2/3 supermajority requirement, for supporting Open Primaries, etc.)

Who said “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem”?

I guess that is only a phrase used during election campaigns. :-(