3 Areas to Watch

by Brian Leubitz

If you care to look, it seems that the Sacramento press corps (all three to five of the hardy souls) have just written either a wrap up of 2011 or a preview of 2012.  You basically get a few points with slightly different order depending on the writer(s), but here are a few points worth noting:

1) Jerry Brown is just Jerry Brown

That isn’t to say he’s any worse than any other governor that we could have ended up with, but that he’s not some super hero who can ride in to save the day.  Even with all of his experience, he can’t magically do Jedi Mind Tricks on the Republicans to somehow be reasonable. I think there was a lot of hope this time last year that Jerry Brown, with all of his experience a generation ago, would be the adult in the room for the bunch of children in the legislature.  But I suppose sometimes the delinquents win.

2) 2012 will be a make or break year for Brown and California generally. Or not.



This is sort of a funny one. Because, really, the same thing has been said about our situation for the last four years or so. Really, ever since the worst of the budget mess began, we have been playing with fire. So, in that sense, yes, every year is really important, but somehow we’ve been able to find some way to make the cuts, cuts, cuts and more cuts into our budget to avoid any real decision-making. Yes, those cuts are a real decision, but more in the passive sense.  We have left the decisions for a few whims of whomever gets the last word at the dais of the respective budget committees, or whomever manages to catch the leaders at an opportune moment.  

They say that budgets are a statement of our priorities. But I hope, for all of our sakes, that isn’t true of the past five years.  Is it really our priority to make the school year shorter? Or to abandon our sick and elderly? Or to cut fire protection services? It is hardly any robust statement of priority when there is a gun at your head.  Our system is so skewed towards one particular priority, taxes, that we have lost all sense of everything else.

Perhaps this is the year that changes that, but from the statements of Sen. Steinberg and Spkr Perez, I wouldn’t expect much from the Legislature. They seem content to wait back for the Novemeber election and to satisfy the budget deficit ($13B-ish) with cuts alone until then.  

“My view is you always have an open door and outstretched hand, but I don’t think we do anything as our main strategy that requires a two-thirds vote,” Steinberg said. “We’re gone down that path far too many times.”(SacBee)

So, perhaps we’ll see a fairly standard legislative year. Maybe something happens with pensions, but more likely, we are in a holding pattern until something is determined at the ballot box with a revenue measure of some sort in November.

3) New Districts and Top 2 Will Bring Changes to Composition of Legislature



At the very least, we will see something new here.  There will, most certainly, be several Dem-on-Dem elections in November. Laura Richardson and Janice Hahn, Howard Berman and Brad Sherman seem destined for some expensive races.  There may be a few Rep-on-Rep, but the numbers and costs will likely be far fewer.  The thing is that there is usually enough Democratic support to get one Dem in a deep Red district top 2, but that isn’t always the case in some of the Bluest seats. Or to flip that, the Deepest Blue is darker than the deepest red.

Now, as to the districts, well, there is still the question of the Senate district referendum.  There is still no word as to whether it will qualify (but expect some sort of word within a few weeks as to whether they will need a full count verification). But, with the signatures out there, the sponsors of the referendum (GOP Senators for the most part) are trying to get some other map more to their liking. The Supreme Court will likely decide on that fairly soon as the SoS needs to prepare for the elections.

There is a very real chance that the Democrats get 2/3 in the Senate (and take away whatever power the Senate GOP caucus had), but it is extremely unlikely that the Assembly Dems are able to do the same. (Cali_girl_in_texas has the over/under at 50).  I’m skeptical that situation would really bring all that much change. Democrats would just be paying more attention to the Assembly. Just a few different, slightly more radical, people in the position of blocking action.

Well, it’s about time to get rolling into a new Legislative year, should be fun!