As it currently stands, the budget is being hashed out between Arnold Schwarzenegger and the leaders of the Senate and Assembly, in private closed door negotiations. Kevin Yamamura of the SacBee explains…
Five Californians are trying to solve the state’s budget crisis, in part by keeping the other 38 million residents in the dark…
They fear special interests will mobilize on every proposal they hear about, ramp up pressure on lawmakers and prevent any possibility of reaching a deal that could secure enough votes.
“Whether it’s education or labor or any of the other groups, when we get wind of something that has significant jeopardy for us, we fight against it,” said Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist for hundreds of California school districts. “It’s a (lobbying) system set up to defeat the latest idea that’s been hatched, which makes it that much harder to get a solution.”
The Big Five process is absurd. There are ways to decrease the influence of special interests, the biggest being full public financing of all elections. The best practice is NOT to hide from them so that the legislative process is like a team of burglars trying to rob a jewelry store without being detected. And the less people involved in any negotiation, the more possibility for eventual corruption through backroom dealing.
While I’m all for public financing of elections; after speaking with a democratic legislator recently, it sounds as if there may be an even smaller culprit at play in regards to lobbyist influence over the current budget crisis…
The Crackberry.
Perhaps the text message is killing the legislative process. It seems as though any time a legislator catches wind of a change that may affect his or her pet issue…before the idea even leaves the lips…the thumbs are pounding and the emails are flying and the next thing you know you have this…
• Some GOP legislators said they were open to voting for some taxes in exchange for business-friendly changes, setting off alarms among anti-tax groups and conservative talk-show hosts John and Ken at KFI-AM in Los Angeles. The hosts illustrated the lawmakers on their Web site as part of their “Heads on a Stick” campaign.
• Fearful that Democrats were willing to ease workplace laws to obtain GOP votes for taxes, labor leaders threatened last week to consider a recall against legislators who voted against their interests.
• Environmentalists believed Democrats and Schwarzenegger were planning to roll back several air and greenhouse-gas regulations to obtain Republican votes, so they took their case public to pressure their Capitol allies.
So before the idea even has a chance to formulate and before any legislators have taken the time to negotiate…the lobbyists come screaming and the politicians back off. In this type of environment it’s impossible to get anything accomplished. It’s no wonder meetings are being held behind closed doors between the Big Five.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t.
I don’t see it happening…they don’t call these things Crackberries for nothing…but maybe if we banned the Crackberry from legislative chambers and locked the doors behind them…the politicians might be able to get something done. Business would still be conducted behind closed doors…but it’d be a much bigger room with a lot more people in it.
We send the money, and knock on the doors, and register the voters and then elect these people to go to Sacramento and represent us. Why do all that work and then let 5 people make all of the decisions that effect our lives?
Take away the cellphones, lock the doors, and let the representatives do some representin’.