Lawmakers yearning for disdain

Sacramento Bee ^ | 3/30/12 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Poll after poll has confirmed that California voters hold their Legislature in contempt.

That's why the Legislature's majority Democrats have been forced into political self-flagellation to persuade – or fool – those voters into giving them more authority.

We saw a lot of that two years ago when Democrats and their labor union allies sponsored Proposition 25, whose major purpose was to reduce the legislative vote requirement for budgets from two-thirds to a simple majority, thus excluding Republicans from the budget game.

The sponsors included a provision they thought Legislature-hating voters might embrace – suspending salaries of lawmakers if they failed to pass a budget by the constitutional deadline of June 15.

Punish us for our sins, politicians appeared to be beseeching voters.

The political ploy worked, or so one assumes, since Proposition 25 passed. But it backfired when Controller John Chiang did, in fact, suspend legislators' salaries when their first budget was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown as being imbalanced.

[eyeamok]

They should be required to PAY BACK their salaries with Interest and Penalties , and shall be remanded into Custody until full repayment of ALL MONIES RECEIVED should their budget become “out of balance” before the end of the Fiscal Year.

[ScottinVA]

Poll after poll has confirmed that California voters hold their Legislature in contempt.

But bet the farm California voters will send 'em back at election time to wreak more havoc.

[ScottinVA]

Gov. Jerry Brown as being is imbalanced

There. Fixed.