FR friend Greg Lucas over on his California’s Capitol blog posts up a media release issued jointly by Senatoor Mark DeSaulnier and Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who are Chairmen of each house’s Select Committee On Improving State Government, are convening the first joint hearing to, "address the pressing need for state government reform."
I noted with interest the group of panelists that will appear before the committee:
- Bill Lockyer, State Treasurer and former President Pro Tem of the California State Senate
- Robert Naylor, former Republican Leader, California State Assembly
- Laura Chick, Inspector General of California, former Los Angeles City Controller
- Mac Taylor, Legislative Analyst of California
- William Hauck, Chairman, California Constitution Revision Commission
- Fred Silva, Senior Fiscal Policy Advisor, California Forward and former Executive Secretary, California Constitution Revision Commission
- Bruce Cain, Executive Director, U.C. Washington Center and former Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California at Berkeley
- Scott Pattison, Executive Director, National Association of State Budget Officers
- Jaime Regalado, Director, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs in Los Angeles
- Brenda Erickson, National Conference of State Legislatures
Notice any glaring omission from this group of fine panelists? Trying to find a conservative on this list would be like trying to play Where’s Waldo. The only two members of the panel that may be interpreted as shout-outs to the right or pro-business community are hardly going to be telling these state legislators anything they don’t want to hear. Bill Hauck of the California Business Roundtable and Bob Naylor both want to roll back term limits, Naylor opposes a part-time legislature (I don’t know about Hauck), and probably as a great indicator of "insider" status, both were strong backers of the February budget deal (which socked Californians with over $16 billion in higher car, sales and income taxes) and Proposition 1A on the May Special Election Ballot (which would have hit taxpayers with over $14 billion MORE in taxes in exchange for the enactment of an ineffectual "revenue smoothing" process). You’ll recall what happened to 1A when the voters got their hands on it. You can see more about Naylor here. I was surprised to see on Hauck’s resume that once-upon-a-time, he served as Chief of Staff to then Speaker Willie L. Brown, Jr!
Anyways, my point is that with ten panelists, DeSaulnier and Feuer could have had the courtesy to 
put some people on the panel who will represent the interests of taxpayers with their input. I’m reminded of the slogan, "Garbage in, garbage out."
This just reinforces the reason why we have such a vibrant direct democracy process here in California. There is simply no way that a sham process that doesn’t even attempt to expose itself to divergent points of view is going to do anything meaningful with its ultimate recommendations. It’s just another waste of taxpayer funds.
As Sergeant Schultz from the T.V. show Hogan’s Heroes would say, "I hear nothing!"
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