New term limits mean more changes now, more stability later

by Brian Leubitz

With the new term limits structure amendments of a few years ago, Sacramento is seeing a lot of change. Lots and lots and lots of change. In the Legislature convening today, 72 of the 120 legislators have less than two years of experience at the state level. That’s a staggeringly high number, and rather frightening for the institutional memory of both chambers. If you look at the new leadership team in the Assembly, you’ll find freshmen legislators David Chiu, Evan Low (Both pictured to the right), Jim Cooper and Miguel Santiago all in prominent positions.

“When the voters approved term limits they voted to limit the amount of experience the Legislature had,” said former Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles. “Institutional memory is found outside of the building and the staff, which is not the best thing for democracy.”

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In the past, new members looked to their veteran colleagues to ease an initiation process that Kathy Dresslar, who was chief of staff to former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, likened to a “drink from the fire hose.” As term limits force those more seasoned members from the Legislature, Dresslar said, newer members are increasingly taking their cues from staff or from lobbyists.

“The new legislators today are still learning from the former members, but the former members are more likely to be lobbyists here in town,” Dresslar said. “So that perspective is passed down from the former members’ clients.” (SacBee)

Not to say that there aren’t great staff in the Legislature, but they weren’t elected to anything. And certainly the lobbyists that are crawling all over Sacramento were never elected. And for the next few years, staff and lobbyists will have an outsized role in governance.

But, all that being said, we have the opportunity for something of a “Pax Sacramento” where a Legislature will, for the most part, remain consistent for the better part of a decade. The new term limits allow for twelve year terms in either chamber, and those 72 members will be joined by another big class in 2016. After that, the changes will dwindle to a trickle for the better part of a decade. Now, that isn’t to say that all will go swimmingly, but the merry go-round will certainly decrease. I tend to be a bit skeptical that stability alone can create real change.

But with strong Democratic majorities for the foreseeable future, one could hold out hope for a functional Legislature.

Successful legislative year made possible with stable budget, decreased GOP obstruction

by Brian Leubitz

Even if you only judge a legislative session on landmark legislation, 2013 was a banner year. The long awaited immigrant drivers license bill finally came to fruition. The minimum wage increase will make a big difference for large swaths of Californians. The LIFE Act gun safety legislation will help make guns a bit more safe, while continuing the pressure for thorough federal legislation.

You may notice that this year also featured a relatively smooth budget process, and few of the late night negotiation sessions which continually marked the last decade. George Skelton thinks that some of the structural reforms are staring to kick in:

It helped, of course, to be freed from a years-long budget crisis. No longer are the governor and legislators preoccupied with fighting over which public services to whack. Credit past cutting, a recovering economy and Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase last year.

But just as important, some recent voter-enacted reforms are starting to take hold. Specifically:

• Looser term limits. Allowed to serve 12 years in one house, new legislators aren’t arriving in the Capitol searching for their next job. They have a greater sense of stability.

Skelton then goes on to point to the redistricting commission and the top two primary system before lauding Gov. Brown’s previous experience as a tool for legislative success. It is hard to argue with any of these, except maybe Top 2. I’m not sure that any of the Dem on Dem races would have really changed all that much on any of these major pieces of legislation. Would Betsy Butler or Michael Allen have voted that differently, or really changed the tenor of the debate? I would submit that Top 2 really doesn’t accomplish all that much except create a whole lot more of campaign spending.

But, on the flip side, it seems apparent that the biggest one really was the redistricting in that it enabled Democrats to capture supermajorities, even if only temporary. It put the Republicans in a mood to work across lines if they cared to get anything major done. There were to be no trailer bills to save their priorities this year, as Prop 30 meant that the state wasn’t seeking new revenue and Prop 25 meant that the Democrats weren’t looking for Republican budget votes.

In a more perfect world, we would have a sane and robust political opposition. But the GOP, statewide and nationally, has opted for a position outside of the mainstream. And for California that means that the state is better off with them in a minority position where they are unable to obstruct the real work needed for Californians.

Bills must pass out of their house of origin today to stay alive

by Brian Leubitz

It’s Deadline Day!

CA Senate has only 25 bills left to hear today before #CALeg ‘house of origin’ deadline.CA Assembly looks to have just shy of 150..

— John Myers (@johnmyers) May 30, 2013

Among those bills are some pretty controversial ones like AB 26. AB 26 addresses a very real problem in workplace safety issues as well as the modernization of big greenhouse gas emitting facilities. However, there are some serious flaws. A recent analysis from Communities for a Better Environment shows a few flaws:

Proposed Assembly Bill 26 claims to advance climate protection and worker rights, but a provision snuck into this bill after it was proposed would do just the opposite for California’s heaviest industrial polluters-oil refineries.

The provision (§ 39714 (c)) would define refinery maintenance as “public works.” It would give oil companies public money that is supposed to be used for climate protection in places hardest hit by industrial pollution, to keep refineries that do too little to curb their emissions running, and insist that they use contractors instead of the existing refinery workers to do all that maintenance work.

Perhaps something can be changed in the Senate to make the bill more palatable and less of a subsidy to oil companies. After all, Chevron played fast and loose with workplace safety and the integrity of our environment in Richmond. Why are we subsidizing Big Oil to do what they should be doing anyway?

It will be a pretty busy day on the floor of the Assembly, but much of the really tough process of pushing bills is done at the other house. That’s where you will see the big lobbying pushes for and against potential legislation.

Legislature reconvenes with some big questions

by Brian Leubitz

I’ve been traveling for a while, but, perhaps my timing was perfect. The 2013 legislative session just reconvened last week, and the issues are still being sorted out.  A few obvious pieces of legislation, such as closing the “impersonating a boyfriend” rape loophole.  Gun control legislation will also be a hot topic, with some sound legislation proposed (such as SB 47, but, of course, the NRA remains dedicated to drifting from their traditional stance to crazy libertarianism.

But, as per usual, the biggest fight remains with the budget.  The Governor’s budgeting forecast shows a stabilization and an elimination of the structural deficit. So, hooray for that I suppose. However, under Prop 98, the education system is still owed billions, which he is looking to repay, plus billions of dollars remain on the state’s credit cards in the form of outstanding bond debt. There is no reason whatsoever to rush to repay any bonds, but the picture is neither as dire as some would paint it, nor as rosy as others would have you believe.

The fact remains that we have slashed social services below functioning levels. And the Governor has said that he has no plans to restore the funding to levels that could actually provide the intended services:

Brown said he is unwilling to restore funding for social service programs that have been cut during the recession. “That kind of yo-yo political economy is not good,” he said. “I want to advance the progressive agenda, but consistent with the amount of money the people made available.”

The spending plan Brown released this morning calls for small increases to education funding in a $97.7 billion general fund budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 but generally holds the line elsewhere.(SacBee)

I get the whole “let’s not go back into debt” thing. It makes perfect sense, but there must be a balance between growth and deficit reduction. As in the rest of the nation, and world, really, job growth is still slow. (Hey, don’t I know it! Anybody need a lawyer/policy analyst/political consultant?)

We need to ensure that the state government doesn’t continue to be one of the 50 Little Hoovers, especially when federal stimulus has pretty much dried up. State government still exists to provide services to its citizens, and a functioning state government, a growing economy must both be balanced against budget stabilization.

Chris Norby concedes tightest Assembly race – photo credit: Chris Prevatt

by Brian Leubitz

With the concession of Chris Norby to Sharon Quirk-Silva, the Democratic supermajority in the Assembly was finalized. The Democrats will hold 54 of the 80 seats there. In the Senate, the situation is slightly more confusing. Senator Juan Vargas was elected to replace Rep. Bob Filner in Congress, so we’re looking at a special election in that Dem-leaning district.

That being said, what does the supermajority mean? Robert had a great take on the situation earlier this week. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the supermajority on KALW’s Your Call radio. You can listen online here or tune in to 91.7 in San Francisco, or KUSP (88.9) in Santa Cruz.

With the deadline approaching, the fight is on.

by Brian Leubitz

With the deadline to get bills to the Governor rapidly approaching, there aree a few bills that are worthy of mention. First, a bill allowing judges to consider the rehabilitation of some convicted criminals with life sentences in a new resentencing procedure:

California prison inmates serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles would have a chance at freedom under a bill approved Thursday by the Assembly.

The bill, which now heads back to the Senate – where it is expected to pass – was approved in the Assembly with the minimum of 41 votes and no Republican support. It was the third time in as many years that the lower house considered some form of the proposal by state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.(SF Chron)

You won’t be surprised to learn that there are some really nasty comments on pretty much every article on the mainstream media that is reporting about this. But if we aren’t even going to pretend to rehabilitate, why bother even have non-life sentences. Just put everybody in prison for life and throw away the proverbial key. But, in the end, that is not a practical or just solution. Even for people who commit murders, we need to allow a judge to have some discretion to determine if the person in question has made strides toward rehabiliation and whether we can, years later, consider them for release. It is the humane policy, especially considering that many of these youth were the lookouts for burglaries and other lesser crimes gone wrong.

In another story that is more annoying than life changing, ssome of the statewide slate mailers really suck. They are of very little value to anybody except the  people that make money off of them.  SB 488 would fix at least one of those:

Make no mistake:  It’s no coincidence that the hired gun for the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs (COPS), Kelly Moran, is actively trying to kill a great piece of campaign reform legislation – SB 488.  This bill prohibits the unauthorized use of public safety logos, insignias and other identifiers on political mail pieces.(Labor Fed)

Ok, we have slate mailers, fine, but at the very least, people should be able to understand where they are coming from without a bunch of confusing names like the COPS slate.