Are you sick of California’s legislature breezing past our Constitutional deadline to pass a State budget, of "partisan" bickering over taxes and spending, and the inability of both sides to come together to solve the innumerable problems facing the Golden State? Well I am. And I’m sick and tired of Democrats getting a pass on the responsibility for these failures.
There is no question who is in control of the Legislature and its operations. With large majorities in the Senate and Assembly, the Democrats have the ability to completely dominate the process by which we are intended to arrive at solutions. Here are a number of examples of how the Democratic leadership continues to fail all of us:
The State budget requires a 2/3rds vote for final passage. From the months of January through June, the Assembly and Senate engage in budget subcommittees that are intended to help create the draft of the conference report the Big 5 (the four legislative leaders and the Governor) will negotiate in the end. Despite the fact that the 2/3rds requirement will obviously be necessary, the short-sighted Democratic leaders allow the subcommittees to do their work under a simple majority rule, effectively ignoring the reality that such a final document will be essentially worthless. That is approximately six months of wasted time and a sure guarantee that there is no reasonable way to have the budget completed by the Constitutional deadline. In effect, by creating and maintaining a short-sighted and oblivious budget subcommittee process, Democrats ensure we never meet our deadline. The entire budget, essentially, has to be reworked with the Republican priorities discussed ONLY after six months of Democrats ignoring what everyone knows to be the vote threshold. The problem isn’t a 2/3rds vote requirement, the problem is a thoughtless and short-sighted leadership decision.
Let’s look at an important, non-partisan issue like water. Every legislator and most every attentive citizen understands the incredible importance of coming together on a comprehensive water plan for the state, including and especially the funding mechanisms that will support it. This year a select group of legislators saw a thoughtful and balanced proposal from Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein. Did her proposal get the support of her own party? No. In fact, the Democratic leadership decided to allow their own most ardent no-growth environmentalists to "negotiate" a water proposal. Any respectable leader would recognize that the composition of a negotiating team should respect the needs of all the stakeholders but should be lead by those who have the ability to compromise and build consensus. Instead our Democrat leader bowed down to the alter of rigid ideology and effectively killed the negotiations. In other words, bad planning and a lack of insight, coupled with the absence of even a mustard-seed of courage, has resulted in Californians continuing to ignore one of our most important public policy considerations.
Finally, consider the incredible hubris in running an institution where it is demanded that one side follow the rules of the institution and the other side is permitted to ignore them at will and without regard to any consequence. This is the remarkable condition of our State Assembly where the rules of the House are passed by a simple majority vote, effectively disenfranchising the minority party, and even then, the rules are "suspended" on a simple majority vote whenever the ruling majority finds the rules they impose to be a hindrance or obstacle to getting what they want. Can you imagine any institution running effectively when the rules of that institution only apply to the minority. Our entire country is predicated on the notion of fair play and yet the Democratic leadership perpetuates this abuse of process because average citizens have no idea what is happening in the halls of power.
The really pathetic part of all this is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. When real leaders begin to stand up in the majority party and respect the institution, then, and only then, will we see the dysfunction of California’s legislature turn around and really begin to solve the pressing problems of our day.