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Politics & The Nation
EZ RE
KLMNO
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2010
THE SUNDAY TAKE Dan Balz
Gains were made, but can Democrats fix California? I SACRAMENTO
n the Year of theRepublicans, California is the great exception.
Whatever force hit the rest of
the country inNovember stopped at theCalifornia border. Democratswon every statewide office on the ballot. They increased their already hefty majority in the StateAssembly andmaintain a sizablemajority in the Senate. Their congressional delegation remains intact, aswell. ForDemocrats, that is cause
for celebration, given the battering they took almost everywhere else.But it is also cause for sober
reflection.Are they up to the task of governing? Nowin full control of
California’s government, Democrats here face the obligation of showingwhether they can shake up a sclerotic status quo and turn around one of themost troubled states in the nation. Events here lastweek suggest
that some of their leaders are ready to try, but finding and implementing real solutionswill require that they challenge their allies asmuch as—ormore than —they compromisewith their opponents. OnWednesday,Gov.-elect
JerryBrown (D) held an extraordinary publicmeeting with legislators and others as he began, even before being sworn in, to lay the groundwork for a serious attempt to dealwith a persistent budget crisis that has crippled state government and turned legislators into objects of derision among ordinary Californians. Aday earlier, LosAngeles
MayorAntonioVillaraigosa used a forumhosted by the Public Policy Institute ofCalifornia to publicly call out the leadership of United Teachers LosAngeles.He branded the union “themost powerful defenders of the status quo” and later toldme the speech marked the beginning of a campaign to challenge political orthodoxy in his party. The twomen’s styleswere
strikingly
different.Villaraigosa was deliberately provocative and chose his venue carefully for
maximumimpact.As a former union organizer, he knewhe would attract attention by escalating his long-standing differenceswith the union leadership over school reform. Brown, the former and future
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governor,wasmore low-key, appearing deliberately circumspect about the choices he willmakewhen he offers his own budget early next year.Hewill need consensus to succeed.He has long hinted that a real solution to the budget crisiswill require painful spending cuts and probably newrevenue sources, and he isn’t in a position
RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov.-elect Jerry Brown, left, andAssembly Speaker John Perez beforeWednesday’s budget briefing. What’s beenmissing in
to start alienating anyone. The public policy challenges
thatBrown andVillaraigosa are tackling are among the biggest of this era: state and local budgets reeling fromtheweak economy and years ofmismanagement, and public schools that are failing and in need of innovation. California haswrestledwith its
budget for years, but the scope of the problemis not aswell understood as it should be. Two days beforeBrown’s public forum,Mac Taylor,California’s legislative analyst, laid it out in grimterms. “I have nothing but bad news
for you,” he said. The current state budget,
whichwas just negotiated in October, is already $6 billion in the hole. The budget for the coming fiscal year faces an additional deficit of $19 billion. What’sworse is that fixes from
last year, as inmany years past, were a combination of gimmicks, temporary tax increases and one- time solutions. “We have dug ourselves a deep
hole,” Taylor said. The state cannotmaintain the
same approach
indefinitely.At some point, there are nomore gimmicks or short-termfixes. The reasonCalifornia hasn’t been able to find real solutions is that Republicans have opposed tax increases andDemocrats have opposed serious spending cuts. OnMonday,
Gov.Arnold
Schwarzenegger (R) declared a fiscal emergency and offered the legislature a package of proposals that he saidwould erase the $6 billion gap in the current budget. The governor rightly said that
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action nowwould helpmake next year’s budget battle a little easier, though itwas clear hewas also anxious to remind people hewas still in charge. “The bottomline is I always
said Iwould go and charge through the finish line,” Schwarzenegger said. But after seven years,with his
tenure coming to a close amid mixed reviews, his powers are
diminished.Democratic legislators turned their backs on himand said they preferred to wait for theBrown administration before re- engaging in the budgetwars. Brown’s transition has been
opaque—as unorthodox as his campaign, according to people around the capital.But his public meeting on the budget, the first of several forums he plans, began the process of educating people and cajoling lawmakers. Soon hewill present the
legislature and the publicwith hard choices, including trying to solve the budget problemwithout tax increases,whichwouldmean draconian cuts in services that already have been reduced. Onemajor change that voters
backed lastmonth—stipulating that the budget can be approved by a simplemajority rather than a supermajority—may help Brown.But voters also supported ameasuremaking it harder to raise fees. Brown’s challenge ismostly
one of politicalmanagement. The budget experts in Sacramento can find the combination of spending cuts and tax increases to put the state’s fiscal house in better order, just as the Simpson- Bowles deficit commission offered a plan for putting the national budget on a straighter path.
Sacramento is politicalwill and political
consensus.Brown has the necessary experience and knowledge of the process to surmount the budget crisis.But does he have the political skills? Villaraigosa isn’t the only
politicianwho is challenging public employee unions around the country, but thosewho have drawn themost attention generally have beenRepublicans. Themayor thinks that the leaders of the teachers union need to be confronted before theywill become partners in reform. The LosAngeles union and the
California TeachersAssociation have fired back, saying finger- pointingwon’t solve the schools’ problems. Villaraigosa is alsoworried
about the cost of public employee pensions and is looking forways to reduce the long-termcosts to the city.He saysDemocrats have been too unwilling to challenge their friends and allies. “I don’t think anybody can call
me anti-union,”Villaraigosa said by telephone late Friday. “I know that’swhat they’re saying, that I’msome kind of a turncoat. . . . I’man unabashed progressive and believe in values thatmake our party different fromthe other party.But I also understand folks are looking formiddle ground. Theywant us to go after the sacred cowswhile still having a safety net.” As people herewatch
Republicans inWashington and in other states implement conservative ideas, the rest of the countrywill be looking to California to see howDemocrats addressmany of the same problems,withBrown and Villaraigosa on the front lines of the action.
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