Crossposted on Prop Zero Ah, New Year’s! Cue the flood of media retrospectives on the year that was. This isn’t one of them. Californians know where we’ve been. Let’s focus, instead, on the Future. Specifically, here are ten things Californians should watch for in 2012: 1. A raft of “tax reform” initiatives on November’s ballot: […]

(Editor’s Note: Tim Hodson was a contributor to Fox and Hounds Daily. We endorse everything in Sherry’s column about Tim and also wish to pass on our heart felt condolences) Crossposted at Prop Zero As if we needed another reminder that the era of deliberation and civility in California politics and government is over, on […]

Co-authored by Douglas Jeffe. Originally published at Politico.

When
you analyze the dysfunctional politics in Washington and Sacramento you can
clearly see that a real problem is that there just aren’t enough Republicans –
moderate Republicans. As with most trends – good and bad – you can point to
California as the place where the demise of moderate GOP lawmakers took root.

What
difference does it make? Plenty.

Today’s
dominant strain of Republicanism views government as the enemy, something to be
shrunk and defeated, not to be fixed. Democrats, with their dependence on the
political largesse of public-employee unions, are constrained by the status quo
and lack the bipartisan partners necessary to pursue constructive improvements
in the way services are delivered and to tackle the economic realities.

Business
has no place to go to push for a positive agenda. In Washington, as well as in
Sacramento and other state capitals across the country, hyper partisanship reigns
and gridlock persists.

Somebody should take California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger aside and remind him that you never bite the hand that
feeds you – even if you’re still hungry after being fed.

Faced with a $20 billion-plus budget deficit, a
record-low approval rating and no prospect of garnering the two-thirds
legislative vote required to raise taxes, he released a draconian state budget earlier
this month and blamed everyone but himself for the fiscal mess that made it
necessary.

To help close the fiscal gap, Schwarzenegger is in
D.C. this week, along with state legislative leaders, with hat in hand to lobby
the California delegation for billions of dollars. But the welcome sign
probably won’t be hanging on the doors of the Washington lawmakers. This month
has been marked by rancor between the governor and the Democrat-dominated
delegation over what he claims Washington owes California.

One particular paragraph in the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s memoir, True Compass, jumped out at me; although
it deals with the U.S. Senate, it bears directly
on what Californians are mulling over these days.

Kennedy wrote, "I think of the withering away of collegiality and sense
of collective mission as the corruption of the Senate.  I don’t mean corruption in a legal
sense; rather I mean corruption in the sense that things are broken."

Kennedy argued that the "breakdown
has been driven primarily by two factors." First," there are forces that
actually do not want the Senate to meet and be active in the affairs of the
nation…second is the distorted influence of money and the power of vested
interests in the legislative process."