As the most outspoken, if not prettiest, opponent of Proposition 25 on these pages, I take smug
satisfaction in how the measure has exploded in its champions’ faces.
Last November, Senate Leader Darryl Steinberg said, "(T)here is no reason
for a late budget again with the passage of Prop. 25… (it’s) a real game changer."
Yes, the Democrats on a virtually party line, simple majority vote passed and
sent to the Governor a budget, which he promptly vetoed. Boom!
Well, at least (they thought) by passing a budget on
June 15 they avoided the pay penalty included in the measure. Boom! Controller
John Chiang has stopped their salary and expenses because the on-time budget
wasn’t balanced budget.
Tens of millions spent to get a simple majority vote
for a budget and a toothless pay sanction, and the whole thing falls to pieces.
Who wrote this thing, Wile E. Coyote?
The past week has been entertaining and satisfying,
but it’s really a sideshow to the main event. The state still doesn’t have a
budget and the hard negotiating is still to come: over short-term legislative tax
extensions, longer-term tax extensions on the ballot, and reforms to spending,
pensions and regulations to round out a comprehensive budget package.
The Controller found a juicy political issue, but he
actually has a more important duty – managing the state’s cash flow as the
fiscal year deadline becomes imminent. Because just like for the half dozen
previous budget struggles, the real deadline for adopting a budget will be when
the state can’t pay its bills.
But won’t the legislative pay freeze bring the
parties to the table? Unlikely. Although a lawsuit to overturn the Controller’s
decision would be unpopular, it is inevitable and probably would prevail.
After all, the Legislature met the letter of
Proposition 25 – it passed and sent to the Governor an on-time budget. The
Controller relies on a previous ballot measure, Proposition 58 from 2004, which prohibited the
Legislature from sending to the Governor an unbalanced budget. But nowhere in
Prop 58 is the Controller directed to enforce that proscription, as he is
implicitly with Prop 25 in his capacity as state paymaster. The people
manifestly did not intend to designate the Controller as grand arbiter of
balanced budgets. If they had, where was the Controller in 2009 and 2010, when
the budgets passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor were as out of
balance as a one-armed weightlifter?
After the thrill abates from another round of
solon-bashing, we’ll still have an unfinished budget, desperate cash flow
challenges, an uneasy credit rating, and wrenching negotiations with high
stakes political consequences for the key participants.
Prop 25, it was nice to know ya. Now keep moving down
the road so we can solve our problems.
Follow
Loren on Twitter: @KayeLoren.