“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” So said Strother Martin’s character in Paul Newman’s l967 film Cool Hand Luke.
These days, the same thing can be said about the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties (CSAC).
In striking a deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the issue of state funding for cities and counties, the League and CSAC didn’t seem to recognize one basic fact of political life in Sacramento: the governor doesn’t vote in the Assembly or Senate.
For those otherwise occupied the last few months in wondering how many members of the Oakland Raiders were going to be fined for violating the NFL’s drug policy (that would be 3, so far), perhaps a summary of events is in order.
The League and CSAC rounded up enough signatures to qualify a measure for the coming November ballot. The ballot measure would protect cities and counties from the state raiding local coffers and using the money to balance the state budget.
However, needing $2.6 billion over the next two years from cities and counties, the governor, expressed dismay at what the League and CSAC pulled off and started negotiating. By threatening to oppose the ballot measure, Schwarzenegger forced the cities and counties to the bargaining table.
In return for getting the $2.6 billion, the governor agreed to support a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the state from taking money from the cities and counties in the future. Sort of “Stop me, before I borrow again.” He also agreed the state would repay, at some point in the future, the money taken from cities and counties over the next two years.
At the photo op, everybody smiled and then probably went out to the governor’s patio and smoked cigars. So far, so good.
But the deal has turned out to be nothing more than some kind of Municipal Munich. The League, CSAC and Schwarzenegger failed to include the legislative leadership in the bargaining. Now the deal has gone sideways. By bowing to the governor’s threat to oppose their ballot measure the League and CSAC are on the brink of looking like panhandlers begging for spare change.
The state already has the money. The Democrats don’t seem inclined to support the deal the governor made with the League and CSAC. The state budget is bogged down in partisan back and forth and the governor seems to have been reduced to standing around in front of firehouses and in shopping malls urging those who stop and listen to put pressure on their legislators to OK his deal and pass the budget. And, by the way, the state budget being talked about seems very similar to last year’s budget and the one before that and the one before that; based on borrowing, spending deferrals and the like, it’s a blue smoke and mirrors job.
Where the League of Cities and CSAC really dropped the ball was in not using the threat of their ballot measure to force the governor and legislature to confront the real issue. And the real issue is how the state collects money, who pays, and how it is spent. The failures in the budgeting system, caused in no small part by all the initiative measures passed by voters over the past 25 years, won’t be solved by deals cobbled together in an environment driven by fiscal threats and political desperation.
At least 75 percent of the state budget is beyond the reach of the governor and legislature, spending locked in place by the state Constitution and the budgeting-by-initiative process that goes on at every election. The ballot measure proposed by the League and CSAC is just more of the same, as is Schwarzenegger’s alternative.
All three parties should have focused on the real issue and driven it to a successful, long-term conclusion that would benefit cities, counties and the people of California.
In a way the League of Cities, CSAC and the governor deserve the involuntary mud bath all are taking these days. The governor is finding out the tough way that popularity does not necessarily equal power. Meanwhile, the League and CSAC are getting a quick lesson in the ways of the political world: if you are going to play hardball, you better know how to hit the curve.
Bob Sanders is a freelance columnist and communications consultant. Reach him at [email protected].
