All eyes on the Democrats
California Democrats are about to lose their favorite excuse. They can’t blame Republicans for anything anymore. With a supermajority in both houses of the state Legislature — and Jerry Brown in the governor’s office — Democrats suddenly can do whatever they want. They soon will have the two-thirds vote to raise taxes without a single Republican vote. They also can put constitutional amendments on the ballot to reform the initiative process, overhaul an unduly volatile and complicated tax code or move to a more simplified and equitable way of funding schools without having to offer any concessions to the minority party.
If organized labor or any other interest group comes knocking at their Capitol offices, Democrats no longer can say, “We’re on your side, but you know how this place is … we can’t get anything done with the Republican roadblocks and no-tax pledges.”
It’s a new day in Sacramento. Will the ruling Democrats seize the chance for a tax-and-spend frenzy, or will they capitalize on the end of gridlock as we knew it to act judiciously on short-term demands and make meaningful, longlasting reforms?
“It’s an opportunity, but also a tremendous responsibility,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said shortly after meeting with incoming Democratic senators Thursday. “I approach it with a lot of humility, and I know my colleagues do as well.”
Brown, fresh off persuading voters to approve a package of sales and income tax increases in Proposition 30, made plain that hewould adhere to his 2010 campaign pledge: no further tax increases without voter approval.
At least for the moment, that seems to be the party line among Democratic legislators.
“No one, including Democrats even of my background, raises taxes cavalierly,” said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “It’s not something done lightly.”
Assemblyman Jerry Hill, a San Mateo Democrat just elected to the Senate, said, “I’ve had to live with the irresponsibility” of his predecessors’ profligate spending in the dot-com boom at the turn of the century. He and his fellow legislators had to make an estimated $50 billion in cuts in recent years — including to social programs dear to the Democratic base.
“I didn’t like it, and I don’t want to see it repeated,” Hill said Thursday.
So what will the Democrats do with their newly endowed pre-eminence as a supermajority?
Interviews with various Democratic legislators after Tuesday’s election offered some clues. Expect their targets to include a constitutional amendment (requiring voter assent) to reduce the threshold for passage of a local parcel tax for schools from two-thirds to 55 percent. Reform of the initiative process —
making it more difficult to get measures on the ballot, and giving legislators a chance to address issues before the vote — was a common theme. Tax reform was mentioned by many. Elimination of credits and loopholes (which Republicans regarded as a breach of their notax pledges) will be on the table.
What was striking about my interviews — as well as the public comments by Brown, Assembly Speaker John Pérez and others — was the Democrats’ pledges of restraint. Several of them mentioned the perils of overreach exemplified by the 1994 Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, when Speaker Newt Gingrich and his charges bulled their way to a government shutdown — and a short-lived reign.
“I would like to retain this supermajority for the rest of the decade and beyond,” said Steinberg.
So where does that leave the Republicans? For the moment, they seem to be watching and waiting — for the Democrats to overplay their hand or ignore issues such as pension reform in which the public is clamoring for action to contain runaway costs that threaten to overwhelm budgets at every level of state and local government.
“I think it’s going to be fascinating, because we’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Aaron McLear, a leading Republican strategist. He added: “When they had near-absolute power, they didn’t use that near-absolute power to effect change for the better. They used it to gain more power.”
Kevin Mullin, newly elected to the Assembly as a Democrat from South San Francisco, campaigned on a pledge to work with other freshmen to change the us-against-them “caucus culture” in which working across party lines is regarded as an act of disloyalty. The emergence of a Democratic supermajority does not diminish his resolve to create a bipartisan working group.
“It’s a very tenuous supermajority and it could go away in coming election cycles,” Mullin said. “And in no way does it obviate the need to reach out beyond our party.”
The ruling Democrats have never been so liberated — or so tested and scrutinized.
“As exciting of a time it is for us,” said Leno, “it’s also a sobering time.”