California is about to embark on an interesting adventure. It is an adventure of the voters’ own choosing. They went retro with Jerry Brown. They decided to put an entire state government in the hands of the most leftist leadership, if not in the country, certainly in the history of this state. The voters, while handing the day to day operations of the executive branch into the hands of these collectivist comrades, also enacted a majority vote requirement for the budget. Since that majority is also mainly leftist Democrats, it appears that the state and its operations are in the control of those who believe that there is no limit to the good government can do, if it is just in the right hands. Since they think they are the ones with the right hands, be careful, we are in for a wild ride.
The voters, however, didn’t fall completely off the turnip truck. While handing over responsibility for day to day operations, and well as the policy functions, to a bunch of utopia-crats, they left some adult supervision of that effort, by putting a veto over the "tax-raising" function in the hands of the Republicans. While there are not many Republicans between the Leftists and your pocket, there are just enough to stop what I anticipate will be the coming insanity in state government.
So-what do my Republican friends do now that they really have almost nothing in terms of power? Let the Democrats govern. They wanted it, they got it, don’t help them do it, let them do it, on the budget they have right now. All of you promised you wouldn’t vote to raise taxes and fees, keep your promise, vote against all spending increases, and let the Democrats have their day.
I wouldn’t recommend sitting idly by while they do it, but do not help them. Criticize them when you know they are wrong (that will be whenever they spend more money and increase the size of government), be quiet when you are not sure. I would not praise them if you think they are right (unless they are actually cutting the size of government) because chances are, if you think the Democrats are right, like as not, you are wrong, and you don’t want to go on record as supporting one of their crazy policies that go wrong, because you will get the blame for the policy when it goes wrong by the media. You will never be praised for being right, and you will always blamed for anything the Democrats do wrong.
Quite frankly, the only way for Republicans to gain power in California is to: (1) actively rebuild the party from the grassroots up; and (2) wait for the voters to reject Democrat policies.
This will be up to the Republicans in the Legislature. Congressional Republicans will be busy running the country, they won’t have time to rebuild the state party. Redistricting is going to put a lot of current Republicans at risk, as the Democrats push for a 2/3ds majority by drawing the lines to make it so. If Legislative Republicans don’t start rebuilding the party now, they will be more irrelevant in two years than they are now, because they have fewer than 2/3ds of the votes in both houses of the Legislature.
A few years ago, I proposed the "Adopt A District" plan, a two year plan for moving "swing" districts into the Republican column. Most of my Republican colleagues rejected the plan, because it required them to work outside their "safe" district. Now they have to work outside their district, because, when the new lines are drawn, they are going to find their re-election is in trouble if they don’t. Perhaps now (although perhaps too late), they will get off their collective you-know-whats and get to work. And, if they perform this simple (though time consuming) work, they will find the path back to power.
The era of Schwarzenegger is over. The Brown era has returned. We have gone back to the future here in California. Opposing taxes and fighting big government were the lessons Republicans learned in the 1970s, which led them to Reagan and Deukmejian wins in the 1980s. Government is bigger, more inefficient, and more under the control of the leftist mob in this state today, so Republicans have to work harder to win, but it can be done. It will take a lot of work, and some guts to accomplish the task. Only time will tell if the Legislative Republicans are up to it. I’m betting they are.