Yesterday I sat in the back of the Governor’s press conference room in the State Capitol, and listened to the Governor talk about the current status of budget negotiations. He basically said that Democrat and Republican legislators were putting more energy into disagreeing that in trying to negotiate a solution to the current fiscal crisis. He summarily announced that he would be inviting the “Big 5” to meet tomorrow to kick-start negotiations.
I have some strong advice for the Governor, relative to improving his ability to bring Republicans to the table in a meaningful way. First and foremost, the Governor KNOWS how passionate and outraged all of the Republican legislators were over the end-run on Proposition 13 when the Democrats orchestrated passing billions of dollars in new taxes in both houses on a majority vote, making some bizarre case that because of the circuitous route they took to raise the revenues, they had avoided the 2/3rds vote requirement. In fact, the Governor went into yesterday’s press conference knowing that every Republican legislator (yes, every single one) had signed on as plaintiffs, along with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the NFIB California, and others (including the FlashReport!), in a lawsuit to stop his end-run against the State Constitution.
All of that said, I surprised initially that the Governor didn’t immediately, at the time the Democrats pulled this stunt, condemn it and declare any taxes passed this way to be dead on arrival on his desk. I was extremely saddened yesterday that the Governor was actually quite dismissive of the whole issue in the Press Conference. In response to a reporter question, the Governor’s statement was something extremely close to this: “I was not that concerned about the two-thirds vote versus the majority. I know there are legal experts out there and they can battle all that out.”
The calm manner in which the Governor said this really underscored the profound “disconnect” between him and every other Republican in the building.
So – the advice? Care about it. Care about the Proposition 13 protections. Care about upholding the State Constitution. Be a responsible Republican Governor. Or if you cannot muster up the internal emotion to care a lot about this issue, then at least go into the room knowing that to two of the four principles that will be in your Big 5 meeting, it is a critically important issue. Then demonstrate concern by making it clear that the majority-vote tax scheme is off the table – that if it is tried again, it would be met with a veto, regardless of whatever “economic stimulus” is placed in the package.
If the Governor does this, it would be the first step down a (long) road of establishing a needed camaraderie with fellow Republicans in the Capitol. Frankly, if I were Senator Cogdill or Assemblyman Villines, and if isn’t established within the first moments of that meeting that such a scheme is now off the table, I would just leave. There is no such thing as negotiating with scoundrels who don’t respect the Constitution.
On a closing note, I just have to say that all of this talk about putting “economic stimulus” measures in a bill that wallops the economy with massive higher taxes is – well, lame. The massive size of these taxes insure that the negative effect of the new tax burden will eclipse any positive benefits from the “stimulus” proposals. What we need is the “stimulus” and NO NEW TAXES. That is a recipe to bring back the economy, and in that way increase state revenues. The Governor’s premise, of course, is that the overspending crisis cannot be solved without massive new taxes, and that some positive changes in regulations would at least be some sort of mitigation of the negative impacts of the taxes on the weak economy. We don’t buy that a problem created exclusively by overspending cannot be resolved exclusively by reducing the very spending that went up.
And then there is the notion that the Governor wants relief for California businesses while he continues unabated with his mission of imposing onerous and costly regulations on our state’s economy in his quest to see California reduce a nano-percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Sigh.
Bringing the Governor back from the bring will have to be an incremental process. But it starts by taking illegal tax increases off the table.
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