The California legislature has passed another state budget on what is called schedule. wink wink. It’s a tight budget.
Voters in 2010 passed a ballot measure requiring lawmakers to adopt an annual budget by June 15. Otherwise no reward will be paid.
Since then they have followed the letter of the law but not the spirit. In a partisan vote, the budget bill passed the broad outlines ahead of time, but lacked necessary detail on many issues.
In the Capitol, it’s called the “salary” budget.
The crux of the negotiations will be revealed later in the “trailer” bill. Amounts are also updated in “Budget Junior” which amends the original salary version.
So politicians found legal ways to circumvent voter edicts. They are still being paid, but it is common for the budget, which goes into effect on 1 July, not to be fully finalized until the end of the parliamentary session at the end of August or even September. .
But the truth is, their new budgeting process is far better than the irresponsible and corrupt game voters were playing before they passed the 2010 reforms.
A major reform was to reduce the number of votes required to pass a budget to a simple majority. Prior to that, budget proposals required a massive two-thirds supermajority, which is increasingly difficult to achieve without incentives for some members of Congress to increase spending. became possible.
The budget was always held hostage by legislators (usually minority Republicans) seeking special agreements for their districts or political favors for themselves.
The governor and congressional leaders squabbled throughout the muggy Sacramento summer.
There was a theory that the Central Valley’s relentless sun burned out the brains of politicians. Noggins was furious, and the senators listened to demonic music and danced the “dance of death.”
A senior legislative official once described this ritual to me: “We all dance around the fire. They throw things at us. We throw things at them. Everyone falls dead and we start over.”
It made it easier to write columns, but it was a poor governance.
In most years from 1990 to 2010, a portion of the budget was not enacted until at least July, often in August or September, and even once in October.
Thousands of private businesses that supply goods and services to the state have taken a tougher line since July 1. One summer, state employees were issued IOUs in lieu of salaries. International financiers once showed up to oversee budgeting, demanding proof that Sacramento could pay off its debt as if it were a third world country.
In 2010, the state’s state parks almost ran out of toilet paper. Or maybe it did.
E-mails circulated within the government at the time. “The bottom line is that remote, rural state parks are likely to run out of toilet paper by early October,” Treasury Department Arnold Schwarzenegger said. Banks canceled state credit cards for underpayment.
The budget was not passed until October 7th. I didn’t follow up to find out if it was in time for the park’s private goodies replenishment.
Fewer than a handful of today’s legislators are from those bad old days.
“It was chaos,” recalls Senator Tom Amberg (D-Orange), who was a member again in the 1990s and 2000s.
Today “is like the Gulf War compared to World War II.”
But for moderate Democrats from the battleground Orange County area, it could be a “pretty dizzying experience,” he says. “I [reelection] the goal. Republicans weren’t going to vote unless I was.I had the chance to meet the governor there. [Republican Pete Wilson] Take a few lectures:
“‘You were in service. I understand that sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Now is the time to test the fortitude of man.'” blah blah blah. i voted for it. “
Senator John Laird (D, Santa Cruz) served as chairman of the Congressional Budget Committee in 2008.
“It hurt because I couldn’t control it,” he said of the traffic jams that lasted all summer.
“I got into trouble, [then-Speaker, now Los Angeles Mayor] Karen Bass, because I went to the Obama Democratic Convention. The budget was not adopted and I was in Denver. It didn’t look good. Came back and missed Obama’s historic acceptance speech. I couldn’t even vote. It was crazy. “
Senator Roger W. Niello (Republican, Fair Oaks) was in Congress early in the Great Recession, and one of the few incumbents to remain on Congress when it faced huge budget deficits and forced significant spending cuts. is one of
“It was frustrating,” he says. “Voters got nervous. They said to me, ‘I sent you there to do your job.’ I answer: “If we had agreed to these things, we could have passed the budget on June 30…” And they said, “Maybe it was worth the wait.” “
At least by the June 15 deadline of this year, Congress passed the basic framework for a $312 billion budget.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the legislative leaders (all Democrats) are still negotiating over key issues. These include childcare, medical and transportation costs, as well as prison closures and the governor’s late-entry proposal to streamline major infrastructure projects and reduce delays in environmental litigation.
This process is too secretive and exclusive. Republicans are ignored because they don’t need that few votes. This is a shame because it deviates significantly from the budget.
But overall, today’s budgeting is a vast improvement over the bitterness and chaos of the past. At least states can now provide park visitors with toilet paper.
