Author: Joel Fox

Republicans in the legislature have been tagged as the “Party of No” for not agreeing to put tax extensions on the ballot. However, they are not the only party that is practicing the art of saying no. Democrats are saying no to putting reforms on the ballot such as a spending cap, pension reform or regulation reform.

Read news accounts, editorials or listen to Democratic politicians and you will hear that the Republicans are the obstacle to a budget solution. Democratic consultant Darry Sragow questioned in the Sacramento Bee this weekend whether the Republicans were even committed to democracy because they have not allowed the people to vote on tax extensions.

The Republicans can change this narrative if they come together behind a move to put reforms on the ballot. Five GOP senators have been negotiating with the governor for reforms. They must take the next step and tell the world exactly what they want to see on the ballot.

Once that is done, the governor, the Democrats and their allies will be put on the spot. Do they want these important, long-term reforms to structurally fix the budget problem? Or will they say: No!

When Ronald Reagan first ran for governor of California, he faced a hailstorm of sniping and attacks from the moderate wing of the Republican Party supporting the candidacy of San Francisco mayor George Christopher. To tone down the attacks, the California Republican Party Chairman created what he called the Eleventh Commandment. As Reagan described it in his autobiography, An American Life, “The personal attacks against me during the primary finally became so heavy that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Ironically, the conservatives are firing the verbal attacks nowadays offering a resolution to declare any legislator who votes to put taxes on the ballot a traitor. As introduced, the resolution gives no leeway for voting to put taxes on the ballot even if they are accompanied by major reforms such as a spending limit or pension reform.

There has been no talk about the 11th Commandment as the Republican Convention comes to Sacramento this weekend, and seemingly no talk of Reagan’s Big Tent idea, either.

With budget votes called in both the Senate and Assembly today, one wonders how well legislators know the details of the proposed budget. While debate raged over the potential for a special election and the tax extension part of the budget plan, the California Taxpayers Association took a look at what is actually in the budget bill and came up with some interesting insights.

CalTax reports that the proceeds from the sales and car tax increases would be state revenue, and would be put into a special fund and earmarked for local governments to pay for the public safety programs that would be transferred from state to local governments.

This “public safety” money would be on top of what is now spent on public safety because another provision prevents local governments from using this transferred revenue to replace other funding for public safety. CalTax asks an interesting question: “With local governments facing massive deficits, would this provision make them unable to reduce police and fire budgets?”

Did last week’s Los Angeles election results give any clues on where voters stand if a special statewide election is called?

On the tax front, LA City voters passed a tax on medical marijuana and apparently defeated a tax on oil production. Along with the defeat of another oil production tax increase in neighboring Beverly Hills, it should give pause to those who have clamored for a statewide oil severance tax. Voters understand that the tax will work its way on to them at the gas pump.

Whether approval of the marijuana tax provides any tell-tale sign is difficult to determine. The marijuana tax faces legal hurdles and uncertainties best described by City Council President, Eric Garcetti: “If marijuana is supposed to be medicine, you can’t tax medicine. And if it is a gross receipts tax on a business, these (dispensaries) are not supposed to be businesses.”

It may be too much of a leap to guess results from a special election on taxes from what happened in Los Angeles. The concern for those supporting a tax on the special election is that the tax that voters felt would eventually affect them directly (the oil tax) was turned down. Continuation of the car tax, sales tax, and, for many, the income tax, directly affects the voters. A PPIC poll found overwhelming opposition to these taxes marked for extension.

In the long-standing tradition of pointing at Proposition 13 as the cause for all the ills that befall California, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul penned an opinion piece in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee declaring that Proposition 13 and its aftermath “robs us of our ability to govern ourselves democratically and condemns our children to a shabbier life.”

I imagine the folks at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association will add that line to the list of the “Top Ten Ridiculous Things Blamed on Proposition 13.” The measure has been held responsible for a freeway collapse during an earthquake, child obesity, the lack of choir singers, and even O.J. Simpson’s not-guilty verdict in the 1995 criminal trial, to name a few examples.

But let’s look at the charges by Mathews and Paul.

I actually have sympathy for their charge that some power was centralized in Sacramento after Proposition 13 passed. Legislators took the advantage of wording in the measure that allowed property taxes to be “apportioned according to law.”

The influential, deep-pocketed Republican organization New Majority has engaged in the budget debate, sending a letter to Republican leaders Bob Dutton and Connie Conway declaring that the only way Republican legislators should vote to put taxes on the ballot is if meaningful reforms are put on the ballot as well.

The letter specified meaningful reforms as a spending cap that limits the growth of government and uses excess revenue to pay down debt, as well as pension reform modeled after the Little Hoover Commission’s recommendations.

Significantly, the letter rebuked groups that endorsed placing the tax extensions on the ballot with a promise that reforms will follow. The letter, signed by the chairmen of the four New Majority chapters, stated, “…our experience has shown little follow-through on behalf of the Legislature to address meaningful reform.”

David Broder inscribed my copy of his book on the initiative process, Democracy Derailed, to someone “who makes the system work.” The thing is, Broder did not like the system that he occasionally talked to me about — the initiative process. Broder, the national political writer for the Washington Post and dean of the Washington press corps, passed away at age 81 yesterday.

Broder was fascinated with the initiative process enough to write his book about it, which focused greatly on California. He was not a fan of the process. He chose to report the San Francisco Chronicle’s headline on the 20th anniversary of Proposition 13: DEMOCRACY GONE AWRY, instead of the Los Angeles Times’ 20th anniversary editorial comment: “Proposition 13 is 20 years old and it’s time to proclaim the tax-cutting measure a stunning success.”

He followed up a number of times with me listening to arguments about the process. One time sitting down with Los Angeles businessman and civic activist, David Abel and I, in Abel’s office after Abel chaired and I served on a state commission on the initiative process. But hearing the debate, he never wavered in his opposition to the initiative.

As part of the budget negotiations, Republicans have asked that a spending limit be part of the ballot package to reduce future runaway spending. You would think they would get a sympathetic ear from Governor Jerry Brown.

Listen to what he had to say … a while ago, sure, but all the following are excerpts from his Second Inaugural Address, delivered January 8, 1979.

Why the anti-government mood? I asked this same question four years ago and now I believe I understand. Simply put, the citizens are revolting against a decade of political leaders who righteously spoke against inflation and excessive government spending but who in practice pursued the opposite course.

Brown echoed a theme we hear today: Live Within Our Means.

Government, no less than the individual, must live within limits. It is time to bring our accounts into balance. Government, as exemplar and teacher, must manifest a self-discipline that spreads across the other institutions in our society, so that we can begin to work for the future, not just consume the present.

In trying to determine if
a deal to put a spending limit and pension reforms on the ballot in exchange
for placing tax extensions on the ballot were possible, I spoke with a few
people knowledgeable in California politics on my flight to Sacramento
yesterday. The answer I received: the public unions would not let it happen.

Hours later, five Senate Republicans (Tom Berryhill, Sam Blakeslee, Anthony
Cannella, Bill Emmerson and Tom Harman) issued a letter sent to Governor Jerry
Brown saying that budget negotiations were at an impasse. The senators were
seeking the type of reforms that are needed to move the state past perennial
budget deficits: spending limits, pension reform and business reforms.

The latter is important because as Capitol veteran and author of California’s
Tax Machine, Dave Doerr, reminded me later in the day, more money is
brought into the treasury from economic growth than has ever come by way of a
tax increase.

While Governor Brown put off his deadline for qualifying a measure for the
ballot to see if he can get the votes he needs, it appears those interests that
support increased spending do not want the people to vote on specific reforms.
The senators addressed this in their letter to the governor when they stated:
"We have therefore concluded that you are unable to compel other stakeholders
to accept real reform."