I will be on KRXA 540 at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics
Last night I was on Angie Coiro’s Green 960 show to discuss the failure of the May 19 propositions and where we go from here. Opposite me (virtually speaking) was Sen. Mark Leno, although we agreed much more than we disagreed (which is how I prefer it!).
Leno said something quite interesting, and unfortunately the best I can do right now is to paraphrase it. He said something to the effect of “for too long Democrats have been Arnold Schwarzenegger’s enablers,” that they haven’t done enough to push back against him.
I think that’s a welcome and truthful admission. And yet I wonder if the enabling has completely stopped. Republicans are busy pushing their narrative of what happened on May 19, that voters rejected taxes and demanded spending cuts. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders appear to be enabling this point. Certainly Senator Darrell Steinberg and Speaker Karen Bass have said that they don’t believe that is what happened and that voters want to protect key government services. And yet the rest of their statements, as David Dayen explained yesterday, are unhelpfully claiming cuts are inevitable:
Legislative leaders in both parties said drastic cuts will be made to close the gap, although Democratic lawmakers hinted that bridging the gap with cuts alone may be too difficult in a $92 billion general fund budget.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he agrees with the scope of Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts, which total about $9.8 billion. The big debate, he added, will be over how to close the rest of the gap.
Steinberg is signaling a fight over the rest of the hole beyond $9.8 billion. But it doesn’t strike me as wise to even concede that amount in cuts.
As I’ve explained before, spending cuts are an extremely damaging way to “balance” the budget. Mass layoffs and cuts to core services will actually exacerbate the economic crisis and in turn exacerbate the collapse of tax revenues. Further, polls have shown massive public support for taxing the wealthy and corporations. Why aren’t Democrats starting there?
Having talked with several legislators in Sacramento yesterday, they feel chastened, and they understand that voters are angry with them. And yet I’m not quite sure they understand the risks they’re running. A raid on local government money alone could produce open revolt (of the political kind) against the state legislature. Such a raid will push dozens of cities into bankruptcy and worsen planned cuts to police and fire services. That’s a recipe for even deeper public anger with the Legislature.
Democrats in particular need to think about the medium-term before accepting cuts as inevitable. Many Dems believe a 2/3 majority is winnable in 2010. It is certainly within the realm of possibility – but Democrats also risk endangering their own position by causing a massive “throw the bums out” backlash in the November 2010 election.
The Democratic leadership should instead finally stop the enabling, as Leno recognized was necessary, and start assertively proposing their own better solutions. The reason many Democratic voters sat on their hands on May 19 was because they weren’t given anything positive or hopeful to embrace. There were no progressive solutions offered, and nothing that would have suggested a line would be held. Voters want something to rally behind. Taxing the wealthy in order to protect schools and health care services and local government seems a good place to start.
The special election was the exact opposite of the November election. Whereas Barack Obama got himself elected president by empowering millions, building a grassroots movement that made voters feel they were a respected part of the process, and by offering a hopeful message of change, he generated major enthusiasm even though he offered solutions that the Republicans thought they could easily oppose.
California voted 61% for Obama and his agenda of taxing the wealthy and sustaining the government safety net in our time of need. That needs to be the Democratic model moving forward. Cuts aren’t inevitable. Republicans have been rejected as wild extremists by most Californians. Democrats have the space to assert a less ruinous and more assertive budget agenda. Starting off by conceding that cuts and not new taxes should be the solution unfortunately doesn’t help them either solve the budget or improve their fortunes in 2010.
Every Dem in the Legislature should be given a book on tape of the Political Mind by George Lakoff, and a copy of his commentary yesterday at Kos.
the electorate was NOT saying cut cut cut, we were saying majority rule is the way to go.
I voted all NO, and I have voted for a gooper only once in my lifetime, and he was a personal friend.
link here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
The Democratic leadership should listen to its grassroots.
They should immediately stop negotiating with the governor and other Republicans on how to destroy even more of what makes our state human. The Democrats, as a whole body, not just the leadership, should assert their majority, decide for themselves how they want to deal with the shortfall, and then invite the defeated Republicans publicly to join them and take their proposals to the public, first organizing serious grassroots support.
What is the point of doing this if the Democrats still don’t have the 2/3 votes to pass a budget bill? The point is drama! Most Californians are not aware of the minority rule situation. This could dramatize it and place the blame where it belongs. Drama matters. There might still be a later compromise. But the drama would set the stage for a 2010 ballot initiative.
The Democratic leadership should immediately take the initiative on a 2010 ballot measure, a supremely simple one-sentence measure. It would go something like this:
All budgetary and revenue issues shall be decided by a majority vote in both houses of the legislature.
This column today (front page no less) is talking all the right high points: http://www.latimes.com/busines… (The Lakoff approach is great too.)
If Steinberg had listened to Democratic delegates at the convention–people who are elected to represent Democrats across the state–he’d have noticed that they supported spending on schools (1B) and rejected spending caps written into the constitution (1A)–even though we were threatened and told that one would fail without the other. I’d call that a pretty strong message. Since there are more Democrats than Republicans in California, I have to wonder why he’s listening to the Republican talking points instead of to us.
But, when I tried to email him that last night, I got a message saying I couldn’t send him an email because I don’t live in his district. Since he is a leader of my party, and I’m a party delegate, as well as the president of the state senate that represents all of us–he IS going to listen to me because I’m going to call his office as soon as it opens.
If they refuse to listen, it’s not going to be because I don’t tell them what I think!
Well put, Robert … I thought this election being over would allow us to resume (with the Democratic leadership) an aggressive campaign to repeal the two-thirds rule. Supporting cuts at the starting block is destructive, and of no help to us economically, politically and strategically.
And who are the idiots in the state legislature who think we can get a two-thirds majority in 2010?? Really? One of the things I find extremely disempowering about the two-thirds rule is that it effectively puts power in the hands of politicians from Fresno, Bakersfield, Shasta and other conservative pockets that do not represent California. If your legislator is a douchebag, you should be able to throw them out of office … but none of us who live in the Bay Area can do a damn thing about it, because our legislators aren’t the problem.
Even if Democrats got a two-thirds majority, it would come at the expense of pandering to support of conservative voters. When Lou Correa got elected in Orange County, he campaigned as “a Democrat who won’t raise taxes.” Great … that’s EXACTLY what we need. Democrats who don’t believe in anything …
Democrats aren’t talking about raising taxes on the wealthy because it cannot happen, okay?
Democrats have put forward these proposals repeatedly, and they are rejected because we have a 2/3 approval requirement for tax increases.
It is that simple.
Unlike you, Senator Leno, Speaker Bass, and Senator Steinberg have to face the reality of balancing a budget with that requirement, not some dreamworld scenario where they don’t.
is that in the coverage I’ve heard about how their losing the vote means that we have to make the cuts, there’s no discussion of how had 1A passed we would still have had to cut exactly the same amount of money as if it didn’t.
If they want to complain, complain about 1C not passing. But in that case, they have to take responsibility for not following the advice of editors here who told them to forget about 1A and push strongly for 1C.
I am losing a lot of respect — and it feels like a lasting loss of respect — for Bass and Steinberg. They are entirely inattentive to the politics of the situation and intent on rolling over for Republicans and pretending that it’s the voters’ fault. Get a hold of yourselves, leaders, and lead!
Republican State Senator Mimi Walters in the Capitol Weekly today,
they cut funding every year for mass transit , wiping it out entirely and sticking every local transit authority with huge deficits and such. Democrats have been enemies of mass transit, proudly casting their votes for Arnie’s budgets. When will they stop?