State Senator Jeff Denham is warming up for his 2010 Lt. Gov. bid by suggesting the solution to the state's crisis of democracy is to break government even further by making the legislature part-time:

State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, introduced a constitutional amendment Friday aimed at shortening the legislative session by several months. The amendment would also separate the budget and policy-making processes into odd years and even years, respectively....

Denham proposes that legislators work half the time for half the pay. Each legislator's office budget would be cut in half, according to his proposal.

To call this a bad idea is to insult all the other bad ideas that have been floated over the years. California's vast population, complex economy, crippled finances and numerous other ongoing challenges require a full-time legislature with a professional support staff. A part-time legislature will not be able to handle the load. Problems will go unattended, and government's ability to meet the people's needs will be limited.

Which is entirely the point. What better way to scale back government and prevent it from doing anything at all than to turn its legislature, the key policy-making body, into a part-time collection of wealthy dilettantes? For right-wingers who are convinced that government is inherently evil (except when it helps enrich themselves) it's a logical step.

As states like Texas have found, it is also a recipe for disaster. Texas's part-time legislature is a study in dysfunction. Because the legislature does not have the resources of a full-time body, ongoing issues remain unaddressed. Wind insurance problems stemming from Hurricane Rita, which hit in 2005, still have not been addressed by the part-time legislature. Policy problems that crop up when the legislature is not in session either go ignored, or the governor has to call so many special sessions that the legislature is a /de facto/ full-time legislature without the staff and financial support it needs.

In 1965 Speaker Jesse Unruh pushed through a ballot measure creating a full-time legislature for California. At the time our state government was the pride of California, seen as one of the nation's best governments. Unruh understood that a state as big and complex as ours needed a professional legislature that could make informed decisions. He also recognized that unless the legislature was full-time, with the pay to match, that average Californians would never be able to enter the legislature. Only the wealthy would be able to take months at a time off from their jobs to do the people's business.

A part-time legislature would only be open to people like that. People like Jeff Denham:

After graduating from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Denham chose the agriculture industry for a career and now owns and operates Denham Plastics, the leading supplier of reusable containers in the agriculture industry. He and his family also farm almonds at their ranch in Merced County. Denham has amassed a large fortune from the success of his business ventures.

I'm sure that a legislature full of wealthy ranchers like Jeff Denham would be a realistic reflection of the actual diversity of the state of California.

Perhaps I'm being too generous to Denham in taking his idea seriously, since it is little more than a temper tantrum:

If this Legislature is going to use a puppet sentencing commission to release prisoners then its usefulness as a 'full-time' institution no longer exists," he said in a statement. "One of the Legislature's top priorities should be to enact laws that protect the public, not authorize back-door delegation of early releases of criminals." (from the Salinas Californian article linked above)

I suppose next on Denham's list is a part-time judiciary, since it was the courts that have forced the Legislature to address the prisons crisis?

Of course, if Denham were serious about streamlining government, he would be campaigning to abolish the mostly useless Lt. Gov. office. Instead he is going to spend millions to get himself elected to that same office. I'm glad to see Denham puts his principles before his career.

The folks over at Calbuzz have offered several suggestions for how Democrats, who have clearly lost the battle over the budget, can craft a better strategy starting now in advance of the next budget battle, which will arrive anytime between Labor Day and Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Overall their suggestions are excellent, though there are others that ought to be included, as I'll describe below. First, an overview of the Calbuzz suggestions:

Instead of aggresively fighting against the tyranny of the minority, Democrats act like the two-thirds is some unspeakable force of nature, an all-powerful totem before which all must bow down and worship in fear.

Underlying this passive posture are two crippling, if unspoken, assumptions: 1) that policy is somehow separate from politics and 2) that the only reality that matters is that unfolding in the hothouse halls, meeting rooms, chambers, restaurants and saloons of the cul de sac that is Sacramento.

This is a crucial point, and I am pleased to see Calbuzz understanding it. Democratic leaders have used the 2/3rds rule as a crutch to justify their acquiescence to horrific cuts, ignoring the fact that even with that insane stricture there is still plenty of opportunity for them to use smart politics to turn that disadvantage around. The Calbuzz proposals are, in brief (theirs are in quotes, my comments follow):

1. "Bury the petty feuds between the Assembly and Senate and among members." Probably easier said than done, especially in an era where term limits mean members are jockeying against each other for 2010 primary races. But a unified message is certainly a good idea.

2. "Craft a message." Calbuzz suggests that consultants be brought in to accomplish this goal. I'm not entirely sure that's necessary. Dems have the pieces of a winning message in front of them; what they have lacked is the will to assemble them. Californians *do not want* these cuts, so Dems need to highlight the horror stories of the cuts and use that to bludgeon Republicans every day between now and November 2010.

3. "Identify and exploit the weaknesses of individual Republican members." Oh absolutely. That needed to be done yesterday. Abel Maldonado's claims of being a moderate mean he is exposed and vulnerable to a consistent Democratic attack. Maldonado voted against the Tranquillon Ridge project and has expressed unease with some of the health care cuts. Time to back him up against the wall and ask if he is willing to support new revenues to avoid those cuts. Republicans looking to run for statewide office, like Jeff Denham, or who won their seat by claiming to be somehow moderate, like Tony Strickland, are equally vulnerable. Sure, we know that deep down these people are hardcore wingnuts. But they are also politicians, and that means they are vulnerable to the right kind of pressure. Find it, apply it, and repeat often.

4. "Agree on a progressive tax strategy and stick with it." Calbuzz's point here is that Dems have not consistently stuck to promoting one or two (or more) new revenues. Instead they've thrown whatever they can against the wall to see what sticks. Calbuzz suggests instead focusing on the oil severance tax, and I fully agree. The February deal's corporate loopholes ought to be included as well. Democrats need to make it clear to Republicans, the governor, and the state that without an oil severance tax, there will be *no* Democratic votes for any budget in the future.

5. "Build stronger alliances with the netroots." The Courage Campaign is always willing to listen to what our legislators have to say, though we will always maintain our core mission of empowering our members to produce the progressive change they want to see in this state.

There are at least three additional things Democrats ought to be doing:

• Stop worrying about the state's credit rating. One argument we've heard from legislators as to why this terrible budget deal was necessary was that it was necessary to stop the IOUs and protect the state's credit rating. Well, it isn't working. The rating agencies aren't buying it, as the deals are merely ensuring future deficits. Democrats need to find new revenues and resist borrowing and raiding gimmicks - otherwise the state's credit rating will collapse, sooner or later.

• Focus on the human impact of the budget cuts in order to build public resistance to spending cuts as a concept. We're witnessing the construction of a political spending cap, where the force of precedent prevents Democrats from restoring these cuts in the future. The stories of people suffering from the cuts are extremely powerful. Californians do not want battered women to be denied shelter. They want kids to have health care. They want schools to be properly funded. That makes Republicans vulnerable, as the "two Santa Claus" theory has been proved wrong.

• Demand that economic recovery be part of the solution. The two words you have /never/ heard in Sacramento during the budget cycle are "economic recovery." Everyone is focused on cuts and nobody, I mean nobody, is talking about what California needs to do to provide economic recovery. The cuts already made have neutralized the impact of the stimulus, are driving businesses out of the state, and will make it extremely difficult to grow jobs in the future.

Combine those with the Calbuzz proposals and I think you have a winning strategy for Democrats to finally reverse their political losses and save this state from ruin.

As the new Legislature is sworn into office there are hopes that the change in personalities might lead to a resolution of the budget crisis. Many of the new members are hoping to produce exactly that. And while their desire to solve the crisis is admirable, they may not yet have realized that solutions lie outside the Capitol, not inside it.

The San Francisco Chronicle article on the new lawmakers explains their desire to produce change:

Paul Fong, previously a community college trustee, said his first priority will be "to make friends with Republicans and get them to see the light" when it comes to approving new taxes and fees to ease the state's budget shortfall.

I have to guess that's a remark for the media - hopefully Fong realizes that the Republicans are in no mood to "see the light" on the budget. They have shown themselves to be quite happy obstructing the budget and demanding destructive, reckless cuts that will push California deeper into an already severe recession. Many of the new Republican legislators made a show of signing anti-tax pledges, making them even less willing than their predecessors to agree to new revenues.

More importantly, Fong's desire to "make friends with Republicans" is misplaced. It's not Republican legislators he needs to court - it is Republican voters, constituents of Republican legislators. They're the ones who can force the obstructionists to give way to common sense and dire economic necessity.

The most important thing the new class of legislators must learn is that the budget crisis will not be solved in Sacramento. Not in the back rooms, not on the chamber floor. The last few years should have proved that already.

Instead it will be solved in the public - in the streets, at the kitchen tables, at the ballot box. The most consequential budget-related actions in this decade came not from legislators but from the people, whether it was the 2003 recall or the 2005 defeat of Arnold's right-wing agenda.

It's Californians themselves who need to be reached out to, mobilized, engaged. Don't stay holed up in the Capitol - get out there and get the public involved in solving this crisis. Reach out not to obstructionist Republican who will *never* give in, but reach out instead to the decline to state and moderate Republican voters.

Follow the Obama model. Take your message to the places where Democrats have traditionally not organized. Mobilize your base and then use them to reach out to the millions of Californians desperate for change, desperate for solutions.

Democrats have to build a coalition with the people of California. Arnold has been a complete failure as governor, and the Republicans are busy thinking up new anti-labor, anti-environment demands for the hostage crisis they've provoked.

Californians voted overwhelmingly for people-powered change on November 4. It's time for the new legislature to bring that home and engage the public more directly and fundamentally on solving this crisis.

An interesting trend in the primary results is that the more progressive candidates tended to win the state legislative races - Yamada over Cabaldon in AD-08, Leno over Nation in SD-03, to give just a few examples - but the more moderate candidates had success in the Congressional races.

It's hard to make a direct comparison, because many of the contested legislative races were usually not in the same places as the contested Congressional races. The legislative fights tended to be in safe Democratic districts (with AD-80 being a notable exception) whereas the Congressional fights were of necessity in those districts where Republicans currently hold the seat.   Read More »