So Abel’s tears found a floor, and the deal is now done.  It’s a terrible, terrible deal.  Let’s first focus on what Maldonado got, which is less than meets the eye.

• He got his open primary legislation on the ballot, but not until June 2010.  Arnold was interested in it, and so it was likely to get on that ballot anyway.  This won’t help Maldo in 2010, which was probably a condition of the deal.  Considering that it affects Congressional races as well as legislative ones, I expect Nancy Pelosi to go all in trying to defeat and I don’t expect it to pass.  Open primaries have lost on the ballot in the past.

• The constitutional amendment banning legislative pay increases during deficit years passed; the amendment cutting all legislative pay during a late budget failed.

• The 12-cent gas tax increase was cut, replaced with a slight increase to the state income tax, federal stimulus money (which was always going to fill in because it was more than budgeted for) and $600 million in unspecified line-item vetoes from the Governor, which  are going to be ugly.  Let’s just say that the huge corporate tax cut is not the first place Arnold’s going to look.

Now, that’s what Maldonado got.  Among the other goodies in this budget, besides the corporate tax cuts and the privatization of state highway projects and the rest, are:

• A $10,000 tax credit for homebuyers, but only if they buy new construction.  So a “developer bailout” when there is all kinds of existing inventory sitting on the market and lowering property values inside communities.  And now there’s an incentive for them to stay there.  Great.

• Large commercial vehicles are exempt from the increase in vehicle license fees, because… gee, I have no idea.  This is perverse, the opposite of what we should be taxing, which are inefficient vehicles.

• Rental car companies can pass VLF increases on to customers, which they probably would have done anyway, but this makes it even easier.

• One provision allows for the delay of retrofitting of heavy diesel equipment, which will maintain poor air pollution in at-risk communities, and let’s face it, kill people.  Don’t believe me, take it from the Chairman of the Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols: “There are people who will die because of this delay.”

Dan Weintraub is right – this is a budget the GOP can be proud of, because it’s a profoundly conservative budget.  Because they hold a conservative veto over it.  And they get the best of both worlds – they don’t have to vote for the budget en masse so they don’t have to own it.  In short, the hijacking worked.  And that’s a function of process, not personality.

As Jean Ross says, “If this year’s budget negotiations don’t increase public support for reducing the vote requirement for approval of a budget and tax increases, it is not clear what will.”

…there are two initiatives that have entered circulation that would repeal 2/3 for budget and taxes, and replace it with an arbitrary 55%.  It should be majority rule.  But it’s about to gather signatures.  Budgets and bad policies can eventually be changed if the process is changed.

John Garamendi has become the first gubernatorial candidate on the Democratic side to speak out publicly about the crime perpetrated on the citizens of California by a dysfunctional process.  

Lt. Gov Garamendi: I’ve been listening to what you had to say about Republicans in the Senate and Congress, we have an infection here and it’s a Republican infection that’s really spreading across this nation. Just what do they propose to do? Shut everything down? They did that with Newt Gingrich. They seem to want to do that in California and we’re saying no way. no how. We’re gonna build, we’re going to go with Obama.

We do have a two thirds vote….And then when you have Republicans that have taken a no new tax pledge and seem to just want to throw this state and really the nation into chaos and further decline in the economy, then we have the gridlock that we see. We need to change our constitution.

We need to hold these Republicans accountable…

The problem is that, as a solution, Garamendi called for a 55% bar for the budget.  That’s a completely arbitrary number, and it undercuts the principle of majority rule for an imagined gain of support in the Central Valley in a way that makes no sense.  But at least he brought up changing the Constitution.

By contrast, Steve Poizner thinks the whole deal should be dumped because not enough rich people like him are getting taxed, because, like him, they’re too powerful.

“They don’t have the guts to raise taxes on rich people because rich people have lobbyists and rich people are mobile and rich people will leave.”

I would like to see the fantasy budget Republican Steve Poizner would submit calling for massive increases in the top marginal tax rates.  He should present that at the California Republican Party’s spring meeting in Sacramento this week.  I’d like to see that.  Oh wait, his budget plan is to do everything but the tax increases as a six-month fix.  What a surprise, he doesn’t have the guts either!

(By the way, there’s no evidence that progressive taxation has caused any flight of bodies from California whatsoever in history.  Thought I’d mention that to pre-empt the trolls.)

Finally, the Governor found his way to Sacramento and made a beeline for the nearest camera, not knowing how to negotiate.  This line will make the 6:00 news statewide:

“Anyone that runs around, I think, and says that this can be done without raising taxes, I think has not really looked at it carefully to understand this budget or has a math problem and has to get back, as I said, and take Math 101,” Schwarzenegger said.

Of course, this was the guy who said he’d “terminate” taxes and lied about Phil Angelides’ tax plans.  So he has no credibility and less relevance, no matter the truth of his statement.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with Robert’s take on how the Yacht Party putsch last night does nothing but highlight the need for fundamental reform and a return to democracy in California.  He did an admirable job going over the history and the menu of options, but I want to make the more emotional argument for a return to majority rule.  Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money did the best and most concise job of explaining why, despite the essential truth of the Republican Zombie Death Cult, it’s the process-based enabling that it the original sin.

Although Krugman is of course right to blame a “fanatical, irrational minority” for the current crisis in California, it can’t be emphasized enough that what really matters is the incredibly stupid institutional rules that empower this minority: namely, the idiotic super-majority for tax increases and an initiative system that both created that supermajority requirement and provides incentives to vote for every tax cut while mandating certain kinds of spending because the issues are isolated. Fortunately, the federal level (while it has too many veto points) is not quite at this level yet, and at least the stupid filibuster rule doesn’t apply to budgets.

It’s very easy to get people excited and motivated about a PERSON.  Not so much about a process.  And yet, as we all know, without the process, the villains in this melodrama would be sidelined.  And I believe that is a fact which serves both parties.

People on the left often obsess over whether the electorate can figure out who to blame in these crises.  The 2/3 requirement is a powerful enabler for that confusion.  Because the elected representatives of the majority party are not allowed to impose their will on how the state is to be run, they cannot be held to account.  Because the elected representatives of the minority party are in the minority party, they cannot be held to account.  Therefore we have a political cycle that mirrors the economic cycle that results from these bad policies.  The powerful stay powerful, the voiceless stay voiceless, people lose faith in the process, leading to more entrenched power and more voiceless, and so on.

Greg Lucas at California’s Capitol makes the moral case for a majority-vote budget along these lines, that it is the only way for true accountability in the system.

If the huckstering of the President’s Day Weekend demonstrated anything at all, it’s that the majority party should be able to pass the budget it considers best for California.

If its awful the governor, should he or she be of a different political party, can slice-and-dice it through the miracle of the veto process.

Should the governor be of the same political party and warmly endorse the spending plan well he or she can be thrown out by voters.

And, if the non-partisan commission created by Proposition 11 last November to draw new legislative boundaries does its job it will be possible to throw out members of the party that passed the budget as well.

I don’t agree about the panacea of redistricting – the available data shows virtually no link between gerrymandering and political polarization – but on balance Lucas is right.  It’s not a marketplace of ideas unless citizens can buy one idea or the other and make their decision based on the evidence.  Democracies work when ideas are allowed to stand strong or wither on the strength of results.  We do not have that here in California.

As to my point that this serves both parties?  Greg Lucas:

Just to sweeten the majority-vote budget pot a little, there’s a fairly hefty number of folks who work both in and around the Capitol who assert that whichever team wins the power to run roughshod over the minority party will be so scared of exclusive blame for any badness in the budget being exclusively their fault that they won’t do anything real drastic.

This is what they are scared of CURRENTLY.  There are lots of checks and balances in political systems.  There is no need for an artificial veto.  Democrats will still be timid to stick their necks out (they’re politicians), but at least they would have no excuses.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is irrelevant and a failure. Democrats are spineless jellyfish.  The Yacht Party is a collection of flat-earthers bent on destruction.  All well and good.  Yet all of these discrete groups are enabled by a political system that does violent disservice to the people of the state and the concept of democracy.  We must have a return to majority rule.  For the sake of accountability.

After the Yacht Party putsch, Darrell Steinberg called a vote on the $14.4 billion dollar tax package, and the new leader Dennis Hollingsworth said, “I honestly don’t know how the vote is going to turn out.”

Well, it didn’t turn out.  Cox, Ashburn, Cogdill and even Correa all abstain.  Maldonado votes no.  Not good.  Lois Wolk isn’t there because she’s sick, so this had no chance of working anyway.  We’re in uncharted waters now, unless the lockdown is theatrical and Cox will vote for a newly drafted bill in the morning.

UPDATE by Brian: Sen Wolk returned to vote aye on the budget, but it seems the Republicans didn’t change their abstain votes. It’s always worth giving the two Senators in question a call. Senator Abel Maldanado (R-Monterey County, 916-651-4015) & Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks, 916-651-4001). While you’re at it, it might be worth giving Sen. Correa (D-OC, (916) 651-4034) a call as well as he abstained from one of the votes last night too.

So there is going to be a reconvening of the State Senate today at 10am.  I know, that’s what they said yesterday.  But the plan from Sen. Steinberg is to keep the Senate on the floor until 27 members vote for passage and the crisis is (temporarily) averted.  Meanwhile, 20,000 layoff notices and the closure of $3.8 billion in state public works projects will take place today.  Things like projects to eliminate arsenic in Live Oak in the Central Valley.  You know, dispensable things.  And the Times has a bead on the three Assembly members who plan to vote in favor – Roger Niello, Anthony Adams and Minority Leader Mike Villines.  This is a representative sample of the countervailing forces that Yacht Party members have to deal with.

Adams, a bearded 37-year-old who was elected in 2006 after working for San Bernardino County as its legislative liaison to Sacramento and Washington, has said he would provide the Assembly’s third GOP vote.

“It’s unconscionable that we let this state go over the cliff,” Adams said in an interview. “My job is to get the best possible deal for Republicans.”

Adams faces reelection next year, and his support for the budget package has antitax advocates interested in lining up a challenger in the GOP primary. And because he represents a swing district, Adams must also worry about a general-election challenge from a Democrat.Adams said he had not asked for specific concessions for his vote, or for assurances that he would get assistance to fend off election challenges.

“I’m not trying to find some soft landing,” he said, “although my wife is going to kill me if she hears that.”

They are not rewarded for their vote, and they fear their own “head on a stick” party members more than the opposition.  And so you get this gridlock.

It occurs to me that what Steinberg is doing is what progressives have asked Harry Reid to do in the US Senate for years now.  When GOP obstructionists threaten to filibuster key legislation, we always say “Make them filibuster!  Make them stand up in the well of the Senate and talk endlessly about how we can’t afford to provide health care for children, or how we have to offer more tax cuts to the wealthiest 1%.  Let the whole country see it!”  Well, we’re basically doing that.  The 15 members of the Yacht Party caucus in the Senate will be locked down and forced to reiterate their arguments indefinitely.

Problem is, the whole country won’t be seeing it, the whole state won’t be seeing it, in fact almost nobody will be seeing it.  This is the true failure of a lack of political awareness in California, and a lack of political media.  The pressure points are nearly impossible to hit.  A lot of lawmakers will get tired and need to “bring your toothbrush,” as Steinberg said, but there’s precious little drama outside of Sacramento.  And yet the decisions made in that chamber will undoubtedly impact the entire national economy, not just us.

But that is also good, in a sense, because it means that a sliver of opinion makers descending on the phone lines of the legislature can seen like an army.  I’m going to reprint the email alert that Brian sent out last night, which you may have received, because I think he captured the situation perfectly.  The leadership is making them filibuster.  Now it’s up to us to put on the pressure.

Hey there, registered Calitics user –

If you have been watching Calitics or the news this week, you’ve heard about the budget debacle going on in Sacramento.  For the last three days, we have remained one vote short of the required two-thirds majority for a budget deal, with only two Republicans being willing to join the Democratic caucus in the Senate. You can follow our coverage of the Budget here:

http://budget.calitics.com

To be blunt, the budget deal on the table is a mess. It consists of over twenty bills in each chamber. It guts environmental protections on several major projects, it offers gifts to corporations and a few powerful industries.  It relies on cuts and borrowing far too heavily, and does not provide the real long-term fixes of our revenue stream that we so desperately need. And the spending cap that will go to the ballot in the spring represents a major step backward, and progressives will have to expend substantial resources to defeat it. Yet despite all that, only one thing is really clear:

If we do nothing, the state faces systemic collapse.

Because Republicans refused for years to look at new revenues to balance the state’s budget, California is being hit harder by the economic crisis than any other state. We face a $40 billion deficit, and already the state is running out of money. Schools are looking at cutting classes and laying off teachers. Tomorrow, if there is no budget, 276 infrastructure projects will be halted – affecting 38,000 workers in the state, and the governor has announced that he will issue layoff notices to 20,000 state workers. And the state’s credit rating, already low, will suffer further downgrades, effectively costing taxpayers more money.

The media has now taken notice that the Republicans are trying to bring the state down with them. But the media has little power if we aren’t watching and if our leaders don’t know we are watching them. So, here is what we need to do:

Call Senator Abel Maldanado (R-Monterey County, 916-651-4015) and tell him to give up his list of demands and end this hostage situation.

Call Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks, 916-651-4001) and tell him that the state deserves better than a Senator who goes back on a deal when threatened by his own party’s extremists.

Tell as many people to do the same thing. Use every tool at your disposal, Twitter, facebook, or just word of mouth. The more people that know about this Republican extremism threatening our state, the better.

The Senate is set to once again resume session, and we might be in for another all-nighter. However, keep at it, because this is simply too important to let Republicans play their dangerous games with the lives of Californians.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple days, and the most recent Capitol Notes podcast just brought it up, as reflected in John Myers’ Twitter feed.  First, the equation:

2/3 of 39 = 26.

See, right now there are 39 State Senators.  Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat is vacant until a special election.  Under 2/3 rules, a full Senate would need 27 votes to pass a budget or a tax increase.  The state Constitution requires 2/3 of “the membership” for passage, which is very consistent throughout the document.  Percentages of “the membership” is always the language.  Here’s an example:

(d) No bill except the budget bill may contain more than one item of appropriation, and that for one certain, expressed purpose. Appropriations from the General Fund of the State, except appropriations for the public schools, are void unless passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring.

And if “the membership” is defined as the current membership, then only 26 votes are necessary in the State Senate as currently composed.

So is it really the case that the legislature sat through marathon weekend sessions with still no resolution because everybody forgot to do the math?  Can that really be?

I think Steinberg might as well send the parts of the bill with 26 votes to the Assembly or to the Governor for signage, and if anyone pouts about it we can go to court.  The originalist interpretation is clearly that just 26 votes are needed.

Update by Robert: Unfortunately this may not be workable according to Article IV Section 2(a) of the Constitution:

The Senate has a membership of 40 Senators

I too liked the idea of pushing 26 votes, but the Constitution seems clear on defining “membership” as 40.

Update by Dave: Robert’s argument is compelling, but Anthony York’s article cites a law professor who says it’s not entirely clear.

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution says the “Senate has a membership of 40 Senators…”

But if there is a vacancy, does that change the membership for legal purposes?

“It certainly isn’t out of the realm of possibilty that would be considered a valid interpretation of Article IV,” said Floyd Feeney, a law professor at U.C. Davis. “Courts make interpretations like that every day of the week.”

Feeney said he was not sure if there were other provisions in state law that might contradict, or supplement, the language in that section of the Constitution.

“Clearly, I’d want to do a lot more research before I sign an advice letter on something like that,” he said. “But there certainly would be an argument.”

Of course, getting this adjudicated would likely take longer than even this interminable process….

Just a thought or two on this whole mess while we wait for the Senate to reconvene.  While I didn’t think it was the best strategy to announce a deal and start voting on it before there was an actual deal in place (although the rumor that Dave Cox reneged on a handshake deal changes my perspective a bit), Darrell Steinberg seems to have backed into a strategy of playing Yacht Party obstruction out very publicly, so that the essential insanity of their anti-tax, sink-the-state agenda can be well-described by what’s left of political state media.  So George Skelton does the math and refutes the Yacht Party assertion that cutting spending alone can solve the budget crisis, and Dan Walters manages to describe the situation accurately.

And we all sit at our computers and type out our “even Dan Walters and George Skelton believe” articles, eternally hopeful that this is the corner-turning event, that the public will find the right people to blame for the sorry state of affairs, and punish them repeatedly forever more.  Only it’s wishful thinking.  First of all, I hate to break it, but nobody reads George Skelton and Dan Walters.  They are opinion leaders to about .001% of the electorate.  Second, there was another audience watching Sacramento this weekend, and they were the bondholders, who would be crazy to allow California to borrow one more red cent from them given the political fracturing (and this budget calls for 1.1 trillion red cents, or $11 billion dollars, to be borrowed).  Even if this passed tomorrow there would need to be lots of short-term debt floated to manage the cash crisis until new revenues actually reached state coffers, and with the bond rating the lowest in the country and the dysfunction being played out, I don’t see it happening.

The other point is that this is, let’s face it, a bad deal for Californians.  Among the sweeteners thrown in the deal to attract that elusive third Republican vote are a $10,000 tax break for home buyers to re-inflate the bubble and set the state economy up for an even bigger crash; weakened anti-pollution laws that will cost the state additional public health and environmental cleanup spending in the long-term; a potential budget cap that will make it impossible for public schools and social services to meet demand; and much more.  The tax changes, which are short-term except for a huge break to multinationals, tax things that we want to encourage in a downturn, work and consumption.  What the federal government is offering to spur demand and get the economy moving again is exactly what the state government will be cutting to balance the budget.  That’s not an argument to kill it, but it’s a reflection of reality.

So there will be at best a kind of zero-growth stasis, and at worst a further crumbling of the local economy, with shrunken revenues likely to require another round of this by summer.  Ultimately, the media cannot help the Democratic Party solve this problem.  The bill is coming due for 30 years of anti-tax zealotry and the belief that we can provide whatever citizens need without paying for it.  There isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel.  That some opinion leaders are coming around about 20 years to late doesn’t wash the blood from their hands.  And that the Democratic Party is finally thinking that they should maybe fight against the 2/3 requirement that has relegated them to a functional minority in Sacramento since is was instituted doesn’t absolve them for 30 years of inattention.

It gives me no pleasure to bear the bad news, but there’s no wake-up call on the horizon.  Even all 38 million Californians coming to the same “Hey, GOP is suxxor” conclusion at the same time doesn’t change structural realities.  Those must be fought for over years if not decades, and it is not defeatist to wonder whether it’s too late.

…I think Joe Matthews says it fairly well.

A day after Calitics called the roll of the Yacht Party on the budget deal to be voted upon tomorrow in the State Senate, Shane Goldmacher does the same and comes up with just three Republicans who haven’t signaled a no vote:

The field of potential Republican votes for the budget compromise in the Senate — widely viewed as the most challenging caucus to corral support — has narrowed so significantly that only three members have yet to throw cold water on the tentative deal.

That happens to be the bare minimum of Republican votes needed to pass the $40 billion-plus budget plan.

Those three are Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill, Sen. Dave Cox of Fair Oaks and Sen. Roy Ashburn of Bakersfield.

Neither Ashburn, Cox OR Cogdill said they would actually vote for the budget, by the way.  You can read all of the statements at the link.  It should be noted that normally, the Senate would need only two Republican votes to pass, but since Mark Ridley-Thomas’ seat is vacant (he was elected to the LA County Board of Supervisors in November) until the March special election, it takes three.

That basically means that full caucus unity is needed from the Democrats, and these three votes would have to come through, for the budget to pass.  And we know that Lou Correa is wavering.

And the outside pressure is on.  Opportunists like Steve Poizner are slamming the deal, and advocacy groups on both sides are urging a no vote.

GOP conservatives were incensed at the notion of a colleague supporting tax hikes, while labor and environmental groups were mad at what they consider Democratic concessions.

“If we’re going to win elections in 2010, we have to say that we’re the other party ? that we’re going to stop tax increases,” said Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger and a vice chairman in the state Republican Party.

Jeanine Meyer Rodriguez, spokeswoman for the state council of Service Employees International Union, representing 750,000 workers statewide, was upset by spending restraints and billions in budget cuts in the proposal.

“We’re making it clear to all the legislators that if they vote for this, they’re not representing our members,” she said.

This morning’s Republican press release painted the budget as a necessary evil, so the skids are being greased for passage.  Still, with nobody owning the bill and lots of variables, it’s entirely possible that it goes down tomorrow.  Given some of the details, I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing.  But clearly, tomorrow should be… interesting.

Yesterday the California Majority Report reported that Assembly Democrats unfurled a scroll of all their budget cuts that they have adopted over just the past 5 years.

Assemblymember Noreen Evans, Chair of the Budget Committee, along with

Assemblymembers Saldana, De Leon, and Hayashi, unrolled a 150 foot long scroll listing all the budget cuts the Legislature has adopted since the 2003-2004 budget. The scroll stretched from the Capitol Rotunda to the Governor’s Office and displayed over 180 cuts totaling over $19 billion.

I’m pretty sure they didn’t do this because they were proud of the cuts.  They impact the least of society, and make it harder for those who are struggling at precisely the time they need to access basic services.

No, the Assembly Democrats did this in the hopes that bipartisan fetishists like George Skelton and Warren Olney and the Sacramento Bee editorial board and California Forward could maybe tell the truth for once about what is holding up the budget.  As the CBP noted yesterday, California is the only state in the entire nation with a 2/3 requirement for both the budget and tax increases.  The “solutions” they have therefore had to provide for past budget gaps are often gimmicky and simply delay problems into the future.  But the other consequence is that Democrats have OVER AND OVER AGAIN authorized often painful cuts to state services.  This is not a problem of “the legislature” – it’s a problem of one side willing (sometimes too willing) to compromise and the other unwilling to do so, protected by the dysfunctional laws of the state.

With the proposed federal stimulus bringing as much as $21 billion to the state over the next two years, there’s a lot of talk about a budget deal, and given the Feb. 1 deadline for action, that’s positive.  But the only specifics we’ve heard is another set of debilitating cuts, offered by Democrats as well as Republicans.  This is asymmetrical warfare, where Democrats act in the interests of the state and magical thinking Republicans whine and cry.  And nobody helps Californians sort it out.  This budget crisis is a media failure.  The blood is on their hands.  

It’s very rare to hear the problems of the state’s budget and cash crises discussed correctly, particularly in the wider media.  The journalistic fetish of “balance” and making sure the only valid opinion is perfectly situated in the middle of any argument means that the go-to “experts” for the traditional media are always these Solomon-like High Broderists with advice like “the legislature should just get together for drinks more often.”  Thus the breadth of opinion on a show like Warren Olney’s ranges from California Forward to a beat reporter.  And the problems of the state are always ascribed to “the legislature.”  Not the fact that we have a majority vote for elections but a 2/3 vote for any tax and budget issue, making it literally impossible for the elected representatives of the state to do the job entrusted them by the voters.  No, that would be too simple.  It must have to do with Democrats and Republicans not drinking together enough.

Two more examples of this today.  First, the California Alliance for Jobs, which actually helped lead the fight for Prop. 1A’s high-speed rail bonds, has a couple radio spots out today with “funnyman” Will Durst blaming “the legislature” for stopping all those infrastructure projects and hurting the state.  The MP3 is here.  Amazingly, Durst spoke for 60 whole seconds and didn’t make a Monica Lewinsky joke.  But he also failed to make clear in any way that any particular political party is responsible for budget gridlock.  Durst says that we need a responsible budget with cuts and revenues, without mentioning that the Democrats have PROPOSED AND PASSED that.

Then wet noodle Gray Davis offers his wisdom on the crisis:

“It’s deja vu,” Davis told a cluster of reporters after listening to Schwarzenegger’s somber address. “California has experienced feast-or-famine budgeting as long as I can recall, and (it) will go on for all eternity until the people pass a genuine rainy day fund.”

Yes, THAT’S the problem.  Not having revenues too closely aligned to the boom-and-bust cycle.  Not ratcheting down property taxes so corporations pay less for their space than an average suburban couple in Nebraska.  Not Yacht Party obstructionism.  It’s all about that rainy day fund (which, by the way, was PASSED but which the Governor has continually raided).

The sad thing is that Davis knows he’s lying, but he’s either unable to or incapable of admitting it.  And so the bipartisan fetishists say “can’t we all get along” without recognizing that their rhetoric, which doesn’t assign blame or give any citizen a roadmap to what the problem really is, sends the state careening into disaster.  I have nothing but contempt for these people, even more than the Yacht Party in many ways, because they so blithely abuse their own power.