Political reform will never come from the California Legislature. It must be imposed by voters through the ballot box.
So says the conventional wisdom. On Thursday, lawmakers took some steps in challenging the CW.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez announced legislation that, if enacted, could make several significant changes to California’s broken budget system.
The centerpiece: Lawmakers could approve a budget by a simple majority, rather than the current two-thirds vote requirement, and would forfeit their pay for failing to meet the constitutional deadline for approving the budget.
The proposal would restrict programs from being created or expanded unless there is money to pay for them.
Another proposal would apply that same pay-as-you-go standard to initiatives. Promoters of initiatives would be required to identify sources of revenue to pay for ballot measures that, say, lengthen prison sentences or finance stem cell research.
Several forces will seek to torpedo the package. Initiative promoters will shudder at the pay-as-you-go plan. Senate GOP leader Dennis Hollingsworth called the overall package a “thinly veiled attempt to increase taxes even further and circumvent Proposition 13.”
At the least, lawmakers should give this process a chance to work.
The Joint Select Committee on Improving State Government, chaired by Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, and Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, has been holding hearings on elements of this package since October.
The foundation-funded California Forward, headed by former Speaker Robert Hertzberg, has also helped promote many of these concepts. The group had hoped to place initiatives on the ballot but failed to raise the $3 million or so needed to hire petition gatherers.
Steinberg and Pérez will need to invest serious political capitol to push this package forward. If they can manage to do so, the CW in Sacramento will never be the same.