Last week three Assemblymen spoke at a rally against proposed cuts in the state’s In Home Supportive Services program. This wouldn’t be unusual, as members of the legislature often speak at such rallies, except that in this case, the three legislators were Republicans Brian Nestande, Paul Cook and Jim Silva. It is not a frequent occurrence that GOPers speak at such events, and of course it is especially notable when the state is in the middle of fiscal crisis, with a projected gap between tax income and state government spending upwards of $20 billion in the next 18 months.
Governor Brown’s proposed budget includes plugging a big part of that mega-difference with a five-year extension of massive tax increases that took place in 2009, and were billed as "temporary" at the time. In 2009, the legislature (or to be more specific, every Democrat and six Republicans) voted as part of a budget deal with former Governor Schwarzenegger to pass increases in the state sales, income and car taxes. Because of a campaign promise made by Brown to take any proposed tax increases to the public for a vote, which takes a 2/3 vote of each chamber, much attention is being paid to whether any Republicans will go along (it would take the votes of all Democrat legislators plus three GOP Senators and two GOP Assembymembers to place a tax increase measure on the ballot). This dynamic sets up a scenario where all budget stakeholders, ranging from 
the interests groups being funded by the budget to the taxpayers who would be hit with this increase during a recession and double-digit unemployment, are all paying very close attention. One Capitol reporter made the analogy to me that watching to see whether and which Republicans go up on taxes is akin to the suspense when the Cardinals of the Catholic Church are gathered behind closed doors, secretly electing a new Pope.
In the context of this budget gap and the push by Democrats (once again) for higher taxes, the news of these three Republicans appearing at a rally, sponsored by AFSCME/AFL-CIO, was pretty controversial. It didn’t take long for questions to start appearing on Facebook, and on some talk radio — does that mean that Brown has his votes in the Assembly GOP Caucus to put a tax increase on the ballot?
With that very question in mind, I called all three Republican legislators over the weekend to chat with them about their decision to speak at the rally, and what it meant in context of the budget situation.
First and foremost, all three made it very clear that they are dead-set against tax increases to resolve the state’s overspending problem.
"The very last thing that we need to be doing right now in California is raising taxes," Assemblyman Nestande told me. "We need to get our economy back on track, create private sector job growth, and get people back to work. A healthier economy with more Californians working means more tax revenue for state and local governments. Raising taxes is injurious to economic recovery and should not be part of balancing the state’s budget"
Assemblyman Silva told me he appreciated the opportunity to be very clear on the issue of higher taxes, "I strongly support deep and substantive reductions in state spending, as well as a constitutional spending limit, and I will not, under any circumstances, vote for any measure that raises taxes or sets the stage for a tax increase. Too much spending is the root cause of our current budget deficit and taxpayers must not be punished because the Legislature’s reckless spending decisions."
Finally, I spoke with Assemblyman Cook who was as crystal clear as his colleagues on the issue of raising taxes. "Absolutely not. Not only should we not be raising taxes, but we actually need to be reducing the tax burden in this state which has some of the highest tax rates in the nation," said Cook. Cook has actually introduced legislation this month to end the $800 franchise tax that California requires that all companies pay to do business in this state.
With these kinds of strong statements, it is very clear that last week’s appearance by these legislators does not represent any kind of "break in resolve" of Republican legislators to oppose the tax increases proposed by Governor Brown.
So it begs the question — what was the motivation of these three in attending the rally? Clearly each of them wanted to express public support for the mission of IHSS.
Silva told me, "My experience as a county supervisor tells me that further reductions to IHSS would be penny wise but pound foolish, resulting in more – not less – spending and bigger burden for the state’s taxpayers as patients are moved from their homes to hospitals and other high-cost care facilities."
Sharing his perspective, Cook talked about the importance of preserving dignity for the infirm, and the need for services to be provided to individuals at the closest level possible. "Ideally when someone gets sick or frail, they should be able to depend on their family and friends to provide them with assistance. But in those situations where such support is not available, there needs to be a next step short of shipping these people off to group homes, which are not only expensive, but moving someone to a facility often an extreme step that can be avoided."
"Simply slashing the budget of programs like In Home Supportive Services isn’t responsible we have a historic opportunity to reform this program, in particular, so that it actually is better able to achieve its objective of caring for those who cannot care for themselves," Nestande said. The Palm Desert legislator, who has a particularly large population of seniors in his district, is interested in looking at alternatives to service delivery that have worked in other states, as well as looking at private management of the program. There are a lot of areas where cuts, and frankly deep cuts, are going to be necessary to balance the budget. But we need to be focused not just on cuts, but on reforms — on fundamentally changing the way that many of these services are delivered."
I should add that in my talks with all three legislators, each expressed a great deal of concern about the need to root out fraud in the delivery of this program, a significant goal of reforms to IHSS.