Both houses of the legislature are finally back! Big stuff is about to happen! The end of the session is nigh!
Wake me when it’s over. Sacramento and the rest of the state have different definitions of big.
In Sacramento, big means: there are lots of people with money on both sides of an issue.
That’s why fights over medical malpractice caps; CEQA, and prevailing wages in charter cities are being touted as “big fights.” There’s business money on one side of those, and labor and/or lawyer money on the other.
And of course, if someone doesn’t get their way, look for a big expensive ballot measure next year.
But none of these fights are likely to produce anything big, at least by normal, outside-of-Sacramento definitions. The malpractice caps could be adjusted upwards slightly by compromise. CEQA could get tweaked or not remade. Pushing prevailing wages on charter cities wouldn’t make much difference, since charter cities do not operate in a separate labor environment.
And all that assumes there will be action or compromise. It’s quite possible there won’t be.
That doesn’t mean that significant things won’t happen in the session’s final days. But it’s not these big fights that are likely to matter. No, the prevailing word about the end of session shouldn’t be big; it should be “fear.” Fear that last-minute language will make some mistakes. Or that a terrible piece of legislation — like AB 857, an attempt to turn the initiative process into the exclusive tool of labor unions — will squeeze through without scrutiny.
But there’s not much that those of who don’t work in Sacramento and who don’t have big money can do about any of it.