This week the Republican members of the California State Senate and State Assembly will hold a ‘retreat’ at Donald Bren’s posh Island Hotel (formerly the Four Seasons) in Newport Beach, California. This multi-day affair is an annual tradition, and affords a chance for nearly fifty GOP legislators to come together and spend some ‘quality time’ — getting to know one another (over a quarter of these legislators are taking office for the first time next week), and look at their political and policy strategies for the upcoming legislative session and election cycle.
If FR readers will recall, on the Thursday after the election, Assembly Republicans caucused for several long hours and emerged with a new leader – Mike Villines of Fresno. We featured a column from Villines on this site the very next day, where the new Assembly Republican Leader talked about his priorities, paramount of which is trying to bring fiscal discipline and sanity to state government.
Because of the way California’s Constitution is worded, it takes a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature to enact a tax increase, or to pass a state budget. It also takes a two-thirds vote to place measures, legislatively, on a statewide ballot. It will be these super-majority’ votes that will be the key to empowering Republican legislators in the Senate and the Assembly to achieve the goal of imposing fiscal discipline.
Oh, there will be plenty of opportunities under the banner of ‘bi-partisanship’ for any individual GOP legislators to cozy up to Senate President Don Perata or Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, for the purposes of expanding programs, increasing taxes, raising spending levels, or increasing regulations. Governor Schwarzenegger rather famously last year embraced many of these long-held Democrat agenda items in what we call his, "Bi-partisan, Party of One" act — that certainly won him praise from State Democrats and from the main stream media folks — and has resulted in a massive expansion of state government spending.
The Democrats in the legislature and on some major policy items, the Governor, are going to try to make it easy, and enticing for Republican legislators to lock up in their desk drawers their commitment to returning freedom to Californians. It is more important than ever that Republican legislators unify in their solidarity to oppose such a leftward lurch.
Yes, by standing together GOP legislators can expect to be excoriated by the liberal press, criticized by the left-of-moderate Governor, and chided by Perata and Nunez — but that will be because all of the liberal stakeholders in California politics are worried. And they should be. Republicans in the Assembly united behind Mike Villines, and Republicans in the Senate unified behind Dick Ackerman, present a formidable political force inside of the Capitol.
And while legislative victories will be challenging to achieve, by standing together, Republicans here in California can seek to undo some of the damage done in Washington, D.C. We can send the loud and clear message that it is the Republican Party that stands for lower taxes, limited government, and increased freedom for the people.
We are also hopeful that united legislative Republicans can help to guide Governor Schwarzenegger towards the stark reality that every issue in state government is a ‘fiscal issue’ — and that if he governs as a fiscal conservative, every use of his veto pen will be upheld by his Republican colleagues.
The FlashReport commends our Republican legislators for coming together — and we wish them the best of luck in their meetings and discussions. A lot of positive things can come from teamwork among the GOP ranks in the coming legislative session.
Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?
Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.