Proposition 1F was placed on the ballot by the Legislature to help a couple of legislators feel better about violating their promises not to raise taxes.  This ridiculous waste of ballot space allowed some legislators to pretend that they got something in return for supporting large tax increases.

Proposition 1F does not really change anything.  It prohibits constitutional officers and legislators from receiving pay raises in deficit years.  The salaries for these elected officials are set by the California Citizens Compensation Commission (not the Legislature), and that Commission has never increased salaries in a deficit year anyway.

Proposition 1F does not even accomplish what it pretends to do.  Pay increases, when they are authorized by the Commission, do not take effect until after the next election.  So they are not likely to have any influence on any legislator’s vote.

And even if this measure did influence a legislator’s vote on the budget I would be very disappointed.  For that would mean that some Republican or Democrat voted against their constituents’ interests and their own conscience because of a potential pay raise.

I share the outrage that many voters have toward our state’s dysfunctional budget process.  I do not believe that “deficit years” should be allowed to exist at all, since our spending should decline whenever revenues decline.  However, Proposition 1F does nothing to improve that situation.  All it does is allow a few legislators to pretend that they got something valuable in return for breaking their campaign promises.  We get to pay tens of billions of dollars in new taxes while they brag that future legislators might not get raises, maybe.

I would urge a “NO” vote on Proposition 1F.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.