Posted by Jon Fleischman at 12:00 am on Mar 03, 2010 2 Comments
You are probably going to have to look pretty far to find a
Republican in the Capitol (well, with the exception of Abel "I’ll
vote for anything to get confirmed" Maldonado, who is going to sign
up for the
latest proposal from newly minted Assembly Speaker John Perez
to have the legislature pass budgets by majority vote.
Don’t get me wrong, from a philosophical perspective, it makes
sense. Let the Democrats own the budget, and get out of this
terrible system where Republicans are plied into voting for what is
typically a terrible spending plan for California.
That said, the practical reality is that Republicans have very
little leverage in the Capitol as it is, and the Democrats are
doing such a, frankly, horrific job on the public policy front,
that it would be almost criminal to give them even more unfettered
and unchecked authority in the building.
In addition, I certainly didn’t hear Perez offering up anything
concrete as a "trade off" as he asks his Republican colleagues to
turn into Cheese-Eating Surrender… Read More