Well, the legislators sort of assumed that the budget that they passed last week would be sufficient to keep their paychecks coming under Prop 25. It is something of an interesting legal question as to whether the passed budget has to be “balanced”, but that’s the way Controller John Chiang is reading it. So, unless a legislator wants to challenge him (good optics there), that’s how it is going to be. And, today, Chiang said that the majority vote budget from last week was not balanced to satisfy Prop 25:<\/p>\n
In doing so, the Democratic controller is exercising unprecedented authority Tuesday, establishing a new role for his office under Propositions 25 and 58 to determine whether a legislative budget is “balanced.”<\/p>\n
“My office’s careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished,” Chiang said in a statement. “The numbers simply did not add up, and the Legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the Governor.”
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“The Controller is, in effect, allowing Legislative Republicans to control the budget process and I believe that’s a very unfortunate outcome that is inconsistent with the intent of Proposition 25,” said Speaker P\u00e9rez, D-Los Angeles. “In the coming days, we will be taking additional budget action informed by the Controller’s analysis, and consistent with the values of the budget we passed last week.” (SacBee<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nTwo things are clear, this “balanced” requirement gives the Controller a hefty new power, and it also restores some of the power that Prop 25 took from the Minority. While the daily well-being of the legislators isn’t likely to be on the line anytime soon, this move does give the Republicans a small bit of additional leverage over the process.<\/p>\n
It’s a gimmick, but perhaps a gimmick that changes the playing field just enough to actually make a difference.<\/p>\n
UPDATE<\/b>: Sen Steinberg was no fan of the decision as well, saying “he Controller’s decision today sets a dangerous precedent. The impact on legislative members is real, but it pales in comparison to the impact on school children, the elderly, and the men and women who protect our safety. This decision will not change our commitment and obligation to stand for the people we represent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, the legislators sort of assumed that the budget that they passed last week would be sufficient to keep their paychecks coming under Prop 25. It is something of an interesting legal question as to whether the passed budget has to be “balanced”, but that’s the way Controller John Chiang is reading it. So, unless a legislator wants to challenge him (good optics there), that’s how it is going to be. And, today, Chiang said that the majority vote budget from last week was not balanced to satisfy Prop 25:<\/p>\n
In doing so, the Democratic controller is exercising unprecedented authority Tuesday, establishing a new role for his office under Propositions 25 and 58 to determine whether a legislative budget is “balanced.”<\/p>\n
“My office’s careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished,” Chiang said in a statement. “The numbers simply did not add up, and the Legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the Governor.”
\n
****** ***** *****
\n
“The Controller is, in effect, allowing Legislative Republicans to control the budget process and I believe that’s a very unfortunate outcome that is inconsistent with the intent of Proposition 25,” said Speaker P\u00e9rez, D-Los Angeles. “In the coming days, we will be taking additional budget action informed by the Controller’s analysis, and consistent with the values of the budget we passed last week.” (SacBee<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nTwo things are clear, this “balanced” requirement gives the Controller a hefty new power, and it also restores some of the power that Prop 25 took from the Minority. While the daily well-being of the legislators isn’t likely to be on the line anytime soon, this move does give the Republicans a small bit of additional leverage over the process.<\/p>\n
It’s a gimmick, but perhaps a gimmick that changes the playing field just enough to actually make a difference.<\/p>\n
UPDATE<\/b>: Sen Steinberg was no fan of the decision as well, saying “he Controller’s decision today sets a dangerous precedent. The impact on legislative members is real, but it pales in comparison to the impact on school children, the elderly, and the men and women who protect our safety. This decision will not change our commitment and obligation to stand for the people we represent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[194,9967],"class_list":["post-13606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-194","tag-9967"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3xs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}