I’m a but surprised that they rejected everything on the ballot, but I think the bare fact of tax increases in the budget has colored their opinion on all the measures (which is fine with me, if they want to look a gift horse in the mouth).

SACRAMENTO – The California Republican Party on Saturday voted to oppose all six ballot proposals in next month’s special election, saying voters must reject higher taxes.

The vote by the party’s executive committee followed a lively, hour-long debate that focused on Proposition 1A. The measure would create a state spending cap and bolster California’s rainy day fund, two concepts Republicans have long promoted.

But those provisions were overshadowed by triggers in the measure that would extend the sales and income taxes adopted by the state Legislature.

Party chairman Ron Nehring said the vote symbolized his members’ dissatisfaction with the entire budget deal struck by the governor and lawmakers in February to close the state’s budget deficit, then projected to be nearly $42 billion.

There’s a serious divide and a lack of trust between the electeds and the grassroots on both sides of the aisle.  And the urgent pleas to pass the initiatives just makes things worse, in my opinion, because defending them inevitably sends you down some blind alleys.  Check out Speaker Bass’ attempt, which includes one glaring dichotomy.

“If we don’t pass these measures, when we begin to negotiate next year’s budget, we will have a $14 billion hole instead of an $8 billion hole,” Bass said.

People have become confused, she said, over critics’ statements that measures 1D and 1E will take money from children and mental health programs funded through Props. 10 and 63. Bass said the new measures will tap into the prior propositions’ reserve funds and divert the money into very same programs that the propositions were intended to serve: core children and mental health programs.

“If these measure fail, we will have to cut children and mental health programs,” Bass said. “We are not using all the reserves but some of that money, which will otherwise just sit in the reserves.”

Really, Madame Speaker?  Wouldn’t Prop. 1A divert billions to “just sit in the reserves”?  Are you not in favor of that now, because I get confused.  How can you coherently argue against the value of cash reserves in programs with stable revenue sources and for the value of cash reserves in the unstable revenue-sourced overall budget?  The more the leadership talks about these ballot measures, the more they trip themselves up.