Baseball has been called a game of inches because if the ball moves an inch or so one way or another a hit could become an out, a ball a strike, or a fair ball, foul. Policy decision-making falls into the same near-miss construct at times when politics plays its hand.
Consider the heated debate on prison reform in the state legislature. The recent budget deal called for cutting $1.2 billion from prisons to help balance the state budget. The legislators and governor agreed they would address how they would cut that money sometime after the budget document was signed.
That sometime occurred last week — but there was no resolution. The proposal to release about 27,000 prisoners into different custody arrangements, create a public safety commission to reconsider sentencing policy, and change the rules on certain prison terms barely squeaked by the state senate and stalled, for the time being, in the assembly.
One wonders what the outcome would have been if a few political circumstances were different.
For instance, what if instead of a 21-19 vote in the senate, one Yes vote changed to a No vote? That would have produced a 20-20 tie and required Lt. Governor John Garamendi to supply the tie-breaking vote. A Lieutenant Governor has not broken a tie in the senate since 1976. For Garamendi, politics would have weighed heavily on his choice. The Lt. Governor is a leading candidate in the hotly contested 10th Congressional District special election to fill a vacancy, with the election coming on September 1. Had Garamendi voted with the majority, he might have seen a slew of “soft on crime” commercials hit him at a most inopportune time. Without his vote, the measure would have failed. Tough political call.
This “soft on crime” label is exactly what some members of the assembly want to avoid in their quest for higher office. While sixteen Democratic Party legislators are looking to move to another elected office, at least three are considering a run at the Democratic nomination for attorney general, Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara, Ted Lieu of Torrance and Alberto Torrico of Newark.
What if California voters had not implemented term limits? Would there be as many legislators looking for another government post? Unlikely. If not, would that make it easier for these legislators to sit tight and vote for the prison reform package? There would be less fear of repercussions at the ballot box.
Would this prison debate swing a different way without the obvious politics involved? There are many reasons to reject the prison proposal as outlined on this site Friday. We’ll never know for sure, and the politicians whose votes were needed for a different outcome would deny it. However, like baseball, implementing policy seems to be a game altered by small differences, as well.