After talking with several folks "in the know" inside of the State Capitol — it is clear that the legislative sessions hastily scheduled for this afternoon are pre-mature.  It would appear that Perata and Nunez are somehow trying to push Republicans into making a speedy decision.

To that I say – PUT ON THE BRAKES.

The only rush here is an imaginary deadline that doesn’t exist.  What is the advantage of a speedy vote?  Well, it seems like there might be two of them that are the most obvious:

• Being able to use brute force to get votes from people that simply haven’t read or absorbed the details.
• The desire to get something pushed through before the debate takes place on the budget.

I would counsel legislative Republicans that not rushing into a vote, and taking the time to review this proposal (and subsequent proposals if this one doesn’t cut the mustard) is the prudent thing to do.  Taking some time would allow legislators to do some pretty amazing things…such as…

• read and comprehend what is in the package.
• have their staff members and other people on whom they rely also read it.
• gather input from these sources.
• dialog with each other.
• get information out to their districts and constituents.
• dialog with their respective leaders with any concerns that they might have.

Another advantage to waiting is that going into the budget process strengthens, not weakens the hands of Republicans as it brings to the table yet another major hurdle for the legislature that requires a 2/3 vote.  This means that Republicans can really make meaningful demands for common sense in this package.

For example, right now there are some spending reforms inside of the package that come across not as language in measures that go to go to the public, but are passed statutorily in the plan.  Thus, a future legislature, with a potential Democrat Governor in the future could simply ‘undo’ the reforms.  This is totally unacceptable.

This is just one small little area of contention, but is illustrative that when the legislature is considering plans of this magnitude, it calls for a methodical process, and a lot of careful review and deliberation. 

Everyone agrees that infrastructure investment in the Golden State is a necessity.  But how we go about it, when you are talking about an investment this large, becomes very, very important.  Too important to rush.

Creating some sort of ‘faux’ deadline really does everyone a disservice.  Hopefully there are enough legislators who agree, and will put the brakes on this speeding car…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.