The Legislature breaks its word, most cravenly
Every year for the last two-and-a-half decades a lobbyist friend and I
break down the recently-departed legislative session. Our exchange usually goes
something like this:
Me: I can’t believe that crowd, they can’t possibly sink any lower than
this.
Her: Loren, they can always go lower.
In point of fact, the special talent of the Legislature is to find new
and different ways to astonish and disappoint even the most gimlet-eyed
observer.
Leiwieke for Governor?
Tim Leiweke, president & CEO of the sports and
entertainment companies known as AEG, and the point man on the Los Angeles
football stadium, pulled off the political trick of the year last week.
He not only
won a special exemption from state environmental laws for his plan to build a
stadium in a downtown LA. He helped open up a major new hole in the law itself
– a hole that will ease other big projects and change the political balance of
power in the state.
The law’s
big winner, in fact, may not be football. Leiweke still has to convince a team
to come to LA, and that won’t be easy.
No, the big winner was the
governorship, and its powers.
P3 Job Creation vs. Campaign Dollars
In 1992, the United Kingdom
passed the Private Finance Initiative, which provided legal authority for
government to pursue the use of Public-Private Partnerships ("PPPs" or "P3s")
in the funding and delivery of much needed social infrastructure. Since then, 450 schools, 130 hospitals, numerous
prisons, transportation systems, office buildings, museums, prisons, and
courthouses have been constructed in the UK through P3s. The UK National Audit Office recently
released an audit showing that these projects are three times more likely to be
delivered within budget and on schedule when compared to the traditional
governmental delivery process, and with so many successes they have sparked a
wave of P3 development across the globe.
In 2009 a survey of state and
local government officials conducted here in the U.S. by McGraw-Hill
Construction revealed that 92% of government decision-makers experienced with
P3 projects had a positive outlook on P3s and would embrace an opportunity for
utilizing them again. Yet despite the
success history of P3s the U.S. lags the rest of the world in their embrace. Those
that persevered in the UK’s 1992 groundbreaking P3 initiative now have a sense
of déjà vu as they watch the U.S. and particularly California as we fight the
same battles they conquered almost two decades ago. They certainly understand the economic crises
of an under-funded government facing ever increasing needs for infrastructure
while organized labor vehemently fights to kill any usage of P3s.