“Transparency” is a great sounding word. It probably polls well, but what does it mean? In the context of the budget deal, at this point, it really means having the final language of the bills in the package in print and available to legislators and the public. But it is more than just having the information available, transparency is enhanced by having it available to DO something with it.

I am sure that many GOP legislators recall the chaos and confusion that surrounded the final days and hours of the ill-fated February budget deal. I can't tell you how many Republican legislators who have privately told me that in retrospect, they wished they had voted different. Most of them cited the rushed process and lack of detailed information as contributing to votes they now regret.

I can tell you from my perspective, as an “interested-party-not-in-the-Capitol” that my experience with that February deal was not good, but instructive.

I along with many people I know were assured that the language in Prop. 1A was a spending cap. And when I say assured — I mean over and over. Assurances came from some legislators and some GOP policy analysts.

I was never able to get the language of 1A — until AFTER the deal was voted on and signed! Not being an economist, I sent that language to Ben Zycher, who is a well respected one, associated with the Pacific Legal Foundation. It took him some time to analze the policy, but concluded that the language in 1A was terribly flawed and was not any kind of credible spending cap.

I think a lot of legislators voted to place 1A on the ballot because they had assurances of the effectiveness of the cap.

Because of this experience, everyone should be in 'trust — but verify” mode. What does that mean? Not only should these bills be in print for 72 hours before a vote. But efforts should be made to get these important bills into the hands of external-to-the-Capitol policy analysts, like Ben Zycher, for review and comment.

I have had some tell me that it is the majority party that controls the process. That simply isn't true. If GOP votes weren't needed for this package, then the Governor would have worked this deal just with the Democrats.

Because Republican votes are needed, Senate and Assembly Republicans should be executing a plan like this:

1) Make it known that there are no GOP votes until 72 hours after the bills are public (they still are not all public as I write this.

2) Identify respected conservative policy groups (PRI, PLF, HJTA, NTLC, etc. — heck even CalTax in this case) and get them on the phone. Ask them to put their best analysts on reviewing the deal and the bill language, and comment.

3) Individual legislators should get a summary and the text to interested parties in their district.

4) Listen to the input in order to make educated decisions.

In closing I would say this — I get that trying to corral the votes on any “deal” is inherantly challenging. But for Republicans, process is important. We preach transparency and accountability. Do we mean it? I guess we'll find out!

In the meantime it is hard to focus on the substance of the policies in the deal when the process is so bolluxed up…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.