The California budget has passed — 106 days of stalemate have been broken.
An interesting tidbit surfaced yesterday — the state senate minority leader was ousted from his position. He had been one of the Republican senators who was willing to buck his party. True to recent form, he was replaced by someone who is more conservative. One more instance of a Republican being punished for doing the right thing–putting the interests of the entire state ahead of his party or his personal political ambitions.
Like the Republican party in general, California’s GOP has been taken over by ideologues — people for whom taxes are anathema. They’ve apparently been seduced by Grover Norquist’s dream of drowning government in a bathtub. This is the anti-tax, anti-regulation crowd who brought us the very lack of supervision that led to our current economic mess.
Fortunately, a single moderate Republican–one of a few remaining moderates in California’s GOP–was willing to be the deciding vote. And the concessions he won to obtain his vote have the potential for long-term change. Several times recently, Californians have voted for an open primary, only to have their vote nullified by the courts as unconstitutional. This time, a constitutional change was part of the budget solution. Primaries for state assembly, state senate, and governor will be open. As time has gone on, the candidates who are successful in the primaries are more closely aligned with the extremes of their respective parties. Thirty years ago, Governor Jerry Brown declared, only partly facetiously, that California was ungovernable. Since then, that statement has become progressively more true, finally resulting in this year’s budget mess. Perhaps the open primary process will bring both parties back towards the center. We shall see.
Another concession is to impose a funding cap. A final concession is to restore the budget decision to a simple majority. I haven’t had a chance to ponder the potential consequences of either of these, but my gut reaction is to question their wisdom. I would have prefered a super majority, although the 2/3 requirement was clearly unworkable. Perhaps a better solution would have been to impose a deadline, after which the previous year’s spending levels and budget allocations would automatically become law if the legislature couldn’t agree. And I can’t see that a cap is a good solution because it doesn’t take changing conditions or needs into consideration. Instead, it seems to be a poor substitute for real leadership, which is what our legislators and governor are supposed to be providing. I’ve seen too many instances where there are unintended consequences of something that seemed a good idea in the short-run.
