Public Employee Unions, Democratic Legislators and an Open Primary
Public employee unions’ relationship with Democratic Legislators has shown cracks over the results of the Special Election and the on-going difficult state budget. But, the biggest crack may not be on the radar, yet – some elected Democrats hoping that the Open Primary effort a year from now is successful.
It’s one of those whispered comments you hear in the halls of the capitol from time to time, where rumors are as popular as cold beer at a hot Fourth of July picnic. But this one has some weight to it.
Democratic legislators believe they made the difficult but correct choice to put off even deeper budget cuts by supporting the Governor’s budget deal in the Special Election. While the California Teachers Association went along with some of the package, especially the key measure on establishing a spending limit and extending taxes, a number of public unions, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union balked. In fact, they put money into defeating the measures.
Nobody would miss it
Pundits and pols live to buzz about who will be the next big political thing, so a possible vacancy in the Lieutenant Governor’s office would excite endless speculation https://www.sacbee.com/walters/story/1907176.html> . While a special election has not yet been scheduled, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is considered the front runner to fill the vacancy opened by the appointment of Rep. Ellen Tauscher to a State Department position.
But rather than feeding this frenzy, Governor Schwarzenegger can drive some of the politics out of Sacramento – and drive home his budget and policy priorities – by appointing … nobody. He should then propose to abolish the office altogether.
Nobody knows better than the Governor what a waste of resources (and in rare cases, talent) is the office of Lieutenant Governor. After all, last February the Governor’s only memorable exercise of his blue pencil was to reduce the Lt. Governor’s budget by 62 percent because he wanted “to ensure that sufficient resources are reserved for key programs within state government.”
Travel Promotion Act Passes in Senate, Bringing U.S. Closer into the 21st Century of Global Tourism Marketing
In late May, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation passed the Travel Promotion Act, bringing us a step closer to being a world-class contender for international travel. Most Americans would be surprised and embarrassed to know that we are the only major country without any kind of national tourism promotion budget. Even so-called “third world” countries have travel promotion budgets, including television advertising campaigns in many parts of the world.
After Sept. 11, the U.S. government was reluctant to bail out the travel industry, which lost billions of dollars, causing many destinations to cut staff and marketing budgets. Eight years later, with confusion over U.S. security and the recession in full swing, we have not yet recovered pre-9/11 visitation from international markets.